OneWorld.net (U.S.)

Armed with a Higher Secondary certificate, the physically-challenged Minati Mondal of Danga (in the eastern region of West Bengal, India), hoped to secure admission in a good college. But destiny had other things in store for her. Financial crunch and a family to look after, she took up tailoring instead. Poised on a neither-here-nor-there kind of a situation, a chance meeting with Economic Rural Development Society (ERDS) officials helped her in establishing a tailoring unit, to which she soon added a PCO and a grocery shop. Further, her exemplary enterprise saw her forming a SHG (Self Help Group) of 15 physically challenged people in her village. Today all of them look up to her, not for support but for inspiration, assured of her ability to carry them forward. The fact that ERDS has granted each of them Rs. 10, 000 to start their own businesses, bears testimony to the same.