Written by Utkarsh Rajawat
Sabira Khatoon is a 54-year-old from the village of Durjanpur Patti in Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh. Her husband Saleem used to run a small general store in the village; unfortunately in an accident the shop caught fire and her husband and 12-year-old son were seriously injured. Sabira couldn’t afford to take her husband to a big hospital so she visited DEF’s health center in Mailaraiganj village. Her husband and son were provided treatment but her husband is still not capable of working. Sabira told one of DEF’s SoochnaPreneur (Information Entrepreneur) about this. SoochnaPreneur Eram Khatoon informed the district coordinator and the team in the district went to meet Sabira to find out what could be done for them.
It was very clear after speaking with her that she had enough knowledge about running a grocery store. Sabira’s case was taken to the Delhi office of DEF and it was decided that DEF would invest 7,000 rupees to set up a shop for her. Even before her husband’s accident the general store they were running was not very successful; they didn’t have enough money to invest in the shop and therefore they didn’t have a lot of variety of items in the shop. However, DEF’s team ensured that all the stuff that was put in the shop was sellable. The idea of the investment was to get Sabira back on her feet and then hand it over to her completely so that she could continue running it sustainably and that is exactly what happened. Sabira’s shop was an immediate success- so much so that she reinvested almost immediately as she saw a sharp rise in the sales. Now she has items worth at least 10,000 rupees in the shop. Sabira now earns about 2,400 rupees per month and is also buying more essential items for the shop to attract more customers.