“Oh Yes! Now I am a proud owner of two goats and a Pig”.

A young Santhali woman from Bajartola village of Sundarpahari block in Godda district had a bright smile on her face when asked about her self help group.

Dutmai Marandi, who is very soft spoken but filled with confidence, showed every detail of an entrepreneur as she enjoyed telling every one about her achievements and future plans.

All accounted for Dutnai with Badlao Foundation, a local organization initially supported by “Find Your Feet” a UK based organization providing financial as well as meaningful on time support for a project titled “PAHAL” with a vision for knowledge development and confidence and there by become self-reliant inculcated livelihood activities for the targeted women. Women were formed in a group and the journey towards information sharing and small savings by each group members began. With the credibility earned over a period of time, “Big Lottery Fund”, a UK based organization extended their support through Find Your Feet for helping in further consolidation and expansion of this project.

Livelihood Support Fund, a component that was passed on the group in the form of loan generated her plans to take up potato cultivation on her plot of land and to do this; she approached her group seeking for a loan of rupees five hundred with a payback condition of 2% as interest per month.

With the end of cropping and then harvest, Dutmai after taking care of her domestic consumption and repayment of loan, sold the excess quantity of potatoes which fetched her a thousand rupee.

Dutmai believes in the concept of “money invested is money earned” and so, in her own humble style, she put this message forward saying, “now that I have one small pig, a male baby goat and its mother, I will be selling the baby goat which will fetch me one thousand two hundred. As for the pig, that has now grown nice and fat, minimum rupees five thousand and no less”. I will however retain the mother goat as she will fetch me more babies. Dutmai says, the process has just begun. So, thank you to my group.