Parbati Ghimire

Three years ago, Parbati had the opportunity to realize a jewelry-making training proposed by Volunteers Initiative Nepal (VIN) in the Women’s Business Center (WBC) located in Tinpiple, Tarakeshwar. By then, she already performed several activities such as sewing clothes, making incense, pickle-making, and farming training. Since her children were very supportive by helping her a lot with the household chores, she had the time to pursue her training nterests and do those various activities. While serving chia, Parbati told us that, unfortunately, after her children left to study abroad, she had to focus more on the ousehold chores, which encouraged her to find another profitable activity that could match with her new schedule.

After receiving the jewelry-making training provided by VIN, Parbati felt “more confident, skilled, and motivated to start a small business”. Along with other trainees, Parbati tarted to sell jewels at the WBC, where they could find other ladies from the nearby communities who were interested in buying their products. Moreover, she also walked around the communities addressing potential customers directly.
Therefore, the jewelry-making skills allowed Parbati to generate some income and to adapt the work time with her own schedule. She even improved her skills by herself by searching for new designs and ideas on YouTube to upgrade her creations and to respond to the customers’ will.Time-to-time, she trains the other ladies interested in jewelry-making or improving their skills and creativity.

Sadly, due to many challenges, Parbati had to stop this regular activity. She especially had to face an important domestic workload, an increasing price of the raw materials, fewer customers, an automatization of jewelry-making and a lack of branding in social media. Indeed, the machines were creating stronger jewels for a lower price. Parbati tried to overcome this challenge by learning a new method to make more durable and sustainable jewels, but it was not enough to surmount all the obstacles.

Despite the unfavorable context, Parbati never gave up! She is still occasionally selling jewelry when someone directly asks her. She is also still training the women who are interested in jewelry-making. Finally, she would love to start again a jewelry business whenever the conditions are reunited to do so because, for her, “being financially independent is mportant. What a joy and pride it is to be able to buy stuff you like with your own hard-earned money”. Parbati is very thankful to VIN for providing this training, especially because it allows women to learn new skills, to be more confident and sometimes to start their own business. She was also happy to see us, the current VIN’s volunteers, interested in supporting the women to sustainably develop their own business and trying to react on their immediate needs.

Nowadays, Parbati is perceived as an example by the other women of the community and here is the message she wants to communicate to them: “don’t give up, learn the right skills for yourself and someday, it will be helpful to earn an income or have a hobby for yourself. Don’t worry if it does not work in your favor directly, you will definitely succeed one day if you trust yourself”