A hardworking woman, Kamala from Western Nepal has remained one of the indelible participants of our Income Generating Training. A broken and traumatized girl, mother to a 9-year daughter, holds a story full of horns from a very early age.
Belonging to a rural far-western region, she was married at the age of fourteen to a man who resided in India for employment. Her HIV-positive husband died 7 years ago leaving behind the burden on the wife and daughter. Being unknown about the disease, she too was diagnosed positive after one year and got victimized severely by the family. With no financial and social support, they had no one to rely on.
She expresses with eyes full of tears " My daughter, instead of being HIV negative, was left to die and was untouched even during her severe accident by the family due to my positive status."
All hope lost from life, she even attempted suicide but she was rescued from her hometown by an organization in Kathmandu about one and a half years ago. Since then, she has been staying in the valley being dependent on others, and in the course, she got to receive training on tailoring too. She was emotionally traumatized when she arrived at Setu Nepal for training. After our five days' interaction, she had gained fair enough emotional strength and a financial assistance too to do something on her own.
After the training, she started a tailoring business in Chabahil in a rented room where she has her own happy corner to look after her daughter. She now holds enough courage, skills, and motivation to provide good nurturing for her daughter. She also plans to resume her study in near future to ease her life further.
Post-training, Kamala says, " When you learn to master your inner self, there is nothing you can't do and I now have gained that resilience that will keep me moving no matter what I faced and will face in coming days."