Uchgaon, Kolhapur resident 37-year-old Sadhana Nandkumar Godase connected with CYDA during the community survey of COVID-19 affected families. Sadhana’s family consisted of her husband, 2 children, mother-in-law and father-in-law. Since hers is a joint family her brother-in-law and his family also shares the household.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Sadhana’s family owned a dairy business which was primarily looked after by her mother-in-law. Her mother-in-law was the main bread winner of the family as Sadhana’s husband’s business was very small. Sadhana herself worked in marketing and made a small income through this job while her father-in-law was a retired professional without any source of income.
However, everything changed after the pandemic. Godase household had to close down all of their businesses and thus lost all their income. The family struggled with even getting 2 meals a day. Sadhana broke down while recollecting those difficult days. It was impossible to run the household. She did not even have money for her children’s medical treatment. The family survived hand to mouth, barely making ends meet through support of dry ration kits being distributed. It was also during these already difficult times that Sadhana’s mother-in-law passed away after becoming ill. The tests later confirmed that she was suffering from COVID-19. She said that she does not even wish to remember those days of struggles.
As her mother-in-law was the main bread winner of the family and also the glue holding the family together, after her death the joint family separated and Sadhana’s family was left with no source of income. With the goal of getting back on her feet, Sadhana decided to start a business again. However, their dairy business had been closed for over a year and she worried whether the customers would return. Many such question plagued her, but she gathered her courage and opened up a dairy and bakery business. Luckily, around this time CYDA connected with Sadhana and explained the objectives and process of the Entrepreneurship Development Program (EDP). She was eager to learn how to improve her business and thus promptly agreed to participate in the EDP training.
While sharing her experiences about the training, Sadhana said “The training was very easy to understand. I learnt how to select the ideal location for the business, market survey, the importance of having a current account, licenses required, need for insurance and financial planning for the business.” The training also helped her realise the small mistakes she was doing unknowingly in her own business. She shared these experiences with her husband and father-in-law, who were very impressed with her. Seeing her make progress inspired them as well and now they help her with her business.
Sadhana also submitted a business plan of Rs. 10,000 and received financial help from CYDA and Coforge. This helped her boost her business. She appreciated the financial support as it helped her bring her business back on track. She said, “This support gave us a new hope to stand up again.”
Based on her learnings from the training, Sadhana immediately made changes in her business. She started keeping proper daily records of the inventory as well as records of sales and profits. She is already witnessing improvements in her business due to these improvements. Sadhana now plans to buy a 4-wheeler to enable them to deliver more products at a time and expand their customer base to more villages.
Sadhana concludes by saying, “Many people, especially youth and women, are keen to do something in their life. However, they lack proper guidance for this. CYDA is doing a wonderful job of guiding these individuals and thus improving the society. I would like to thank the organization for helping me, overcome the challenges of my life.