Colline Verloppe Sarah

The entrepreneurship training at Gender Links has been of great help to me; both professionally and personally. I received helpful ideas of how to create a business and how to achieve success through it. I followed the training in 2014 and attended all three phases. Everything taught in this training was useful to me. My project is to make ‘Sega’ skirts. I have not yet started with my business but I intend to do it at the start of 2016.

Before the training at Gender Links, I used to sell food. Unfortunately I had to stop with my business because my husband fell ill. He has high blood pressure and he is suffering from depression. I had no choice but leave everything behind and look after him. He does not work. He stays at home and benefit from pension. During my first marriage, I faced extreme violence, my husband used to beat. We then divorced and I got married again. My situation has more or less improved and the level of violence has decreased in my conjugal life.

The last workshop I attended from Gender Links has given me strength and motivation. I want to start again and this time achieves success. I will make an application for my Business Registration Card and will start to make ‘Sega’ Skirt very soon. I am now working with a friend, helping her to clean a house. She gives me Three Thousands Rupees monthly but the money is not enough to satisfy the basic need of my family. I want to have a job on my own. But I have been rejected everywhere because I am illiterate.

The training at Gender Links has brought changes in me. I was very shy, afraid and fearful. Today, I feel transformed. I got bonded in friendship ties. They supported me and made me realise my worth.  I can now talk to everyone around me. I feel proud of myself. During a workshop last year, I even gave a testimonial speech in front of fifty people. After that I feel very pleased with myself and now believe that I can achieve whatever I wish for. I can do it.

There has been a change at society level because I now easily mingle and talks to everyone. But at the level of close relations, my mom and dad did not notice any change in me. But they love me the way I am. My only grief is my daughter. She stays at my mother’s place and does not want to stay with me. She is not willing to accept my second husband as her father and this hurts me a lot. I am depressed with this situation. I want to see my family united and happy. My In-laws also does not support me, there is always discordances between my brothers- in-law, nephews and sisters-in-law. I want to see us living in a harmonious environment.

My dream is to open a shop on my own and work for myself. I also want to secure my daughter’s future and see her happy.