Umeed helps Kulgam woman to ‘live’ her dream
Kulgam: A 58-year-old woman from Danow Makanpora hamlet of south Kashmir’s Kulgam district has become an inspiration for hundreds of unemployed women as she has lived her dream of becoming a successful sheep farm owner.
Gulshana Bano(58), a resident of despite being uneducated has been earning livelihood for herself besides her family who were otherwise going through a very difficult phase in their life due to various reasons including poverty.
Gulshana while talking to ‘Kashmir Vision’ said that she belongs to a financially weak family with no source of income.
“It was 2019, when I came to know about Umeed and joined the Self Help Group through Naina (Tahira Bashir) and Maqsooda and instantly after joining it I started getting loans which I invested to buy livestock,” she said.
Gulshana says that first she took a loan of Rs 1 lakh that was invested to buy Sheep and since then the number of sheep have been increasing with each passing day.
“Today I own more than 60 cattle and we have already cleared all loans taken since then,” she said.
“As of now I owe a loan amount of 3 lakhs though I have already submitted few installments for it, I plan to repay it immediately,” she said, adding that since last three years their life has started to witness a turn around and they have been earning their livelihood very well now.
“During initial period I had to face taunts and other things but I continued despite that and didn’t lost hope,” she said.
“Whenever a need arises, we sell a sheep to manage our family affairs and Umeed has helped us to become financially stable as we don’t have any other source of income,” she adds.
“The whole credit of my success goes to Umeed, with the help of which I was able to start sheep breeding to earn livelihood for myself and my family as well,” she adds.
Gulshana said that Umeed is really turning to be an ‘Umeed-hope’ for rural women who can start their units.
“Women who want to become financially independent must take help from Umeed and establish any unit,” she said.
Educated women shouldn’t sit idle at home rather they must take benefit of different government sponsored schemes and make a start and one day they too will be successful, she said.
Jahangeer Ganaie
