“I have been gifted with a new insight of viewing the life in totally an optimistic way. I have changed. Irrevocably. Permanently. My soul is richer. My heart that used to be full of despair now is filled with hopes and determination for living a meaningful life. Throughout this journey, SETU has been my milestone and I will be grateful endlessly.”
-Durga Shrestha
SETU Nepal is a non-profit organization working for the welfare of HIV affected mothers and children. As a local partner of ONGD, SETU aims to provide them a dignified and independent life free of discrimination in the society. As a part of the project, SETU conducts five training sessions every year (four for empowerment and income generating and one for micro entrepreneurship), including 14 HIV infected mothers in every session. Those all training participants till date have expressed the positive changes that training has brought in their lives with full bundle of joy which is a major landmark for SETU. Each of them carries their own motivational story and that of Durga Shrestha presented here is a surpassing one.
Durga Shrestha from Makawanpur district is one of the participants of livelihood training that was conducted in 2010 as first batch training program supported by ONGD. She lives with her husband who is also HIV positive and has two children sons. The elder one is studying in grade seven while the HIV infected younger son is supported by SETU for his education in grade 5. After being diagnosed with HIV in 2009 she was broken and depressed with her life during which she got to participate in livelihood training supported by ONGD. Being nostalgic she says “When I had no courage to fight with my situation, it was a miracle for me to participate in livelihood training and I must say it served as a turning point in my life.”
Being invigorated by the training, Durga bought two goats with the seed money provided in the training. With the continuous hardships for one and half year she raised them to four which she sold due to space constraints in rented room. But she still carried the zeal of being self-empowered and then started a tea and snack stall in the bus station of Hetauda. The job was not easy in a rented cart (thela) and she faced hurdles like competition with the existing stalls nearby and also the threat from government police to continue the business in station area. Despite she continued her profession and went on progressing. Admiring her efficient seed money utilization, she was selected for entrepreneurship training in 2015 after which she expanded her stall with the loan provided by adding more food items. She says “The skills and knowledge I learnt in training helped me to carry out my business in a more systematic way otherwise I would not have been able to go this far.” As a result of good profit, she again borrowed the loan after timely payment of previous one. Her hard work paid off and she was awarded as a best entrepreneur of 2015 in the training program of 2016 where she stood as influential women for other participants too. “Now my average daily income is Rs.2000 with monthly saving of around Rs.35000. Now the cart (thela) is my own and I run my business with full pride and satisfaction. I even owe a land worth of 20 lakhs that I bought from my earnings and some loan but no sooner I will pay back the loan too. And I face no obstacles in fulfilling the daily needs and my livelihood is well built today.”
Her motivating transformational journey from a depressed HIV patient to confident and dignified women of the society was a sum up experience of joy and sorrows. She expresses her experiences as “Before training I was very frustrated with life and possessed no courage to fight back. Blaming my husband for the disease and cursing life was all I did but after participating in livelihood training I saw the light at the end of tunnel which guided me to where I am today. I see myself as a successful empowered women and my family which was devastated years ago now is a happy family. My husband is quite supportive now and we do every task in mutual co-operation which has restored all the lost happiness. I am confident enough to deal with every problem on the way with patience and confidence. I decorated my depressed life with never ending hardships and courage which I think is the integral part for a happy life. Courage to live with my held high is the greatest gift I have received from SETU.”