Urmila Devi Ji is a resident of the Lawrence Road Area. After Ignite India identified her and connected her with a microloan organisation she was able to get a proper sanctioned loan. She was unable to find credit anywhere to get capital start her small “sabzi” shop but now she is running a profitable stall and is able to generate revenues of up to 5000 rs a day. She plans to continue her association with the micro loan organisation Ignite India connected her with and expand her business even further. She also feels that her standard of living has also improved greatly since she got her loan sanctioned.
Kusum Devi Ji resides in a major slum in New Delhi where the scope of starting businesses was few and credit was like a fantasy in a faraway land. Ignite India worked on ground in her slum to identify her and many women like her. Currently she is running not one but two businesses: one is a small tea stall and the other is a fruit vending stall. Both her businesses her are running well and in our conversations with her she told us that had she got access to credit earlier it would have made an even bigger impact on her life. She also encouraged us to continue our work since credit is not able to reach the poorest of the poor in India
Poonam Ji is a resident of a slum where credit access was not present and she further had to face discrimination being a woman and running a business was a big taboo in her community. Her story of persistence and not giving up was very inspiring to us. She stated how she used runs a small shop mainly selling tea. Getting credit was a boon for her as she used it to add more products that she could sell along with her tea like “rusks” and this greatly increased her customer base she started getting positive reviews which also increased customer retention. She says that she is thankful to Ignite India for connecting her to their partner organisation Chaupal and she plants to continue her association with them in the future.
Munni Devi Ji comes from a very underserved area of Delhi although she says that conditions have improved in recent years. She feels that credit access is something that their whole basti completely lacked. Even before getting credit she used to run a small “Kirana” shop but struggled with inventory issues as she did not get some of her payments on time and they were delayed and hence she could not buy new inventory. Connecting with Ignite India and then getting access to credit was a big help and now she can run her operations much more smoothly
Dhawanti Ji is a resident of Kathputli Colony of New Delhi and runs a “general” store that sells everything from medical drugs to daily food items. Her store is the only one in her area and she says that her whole neighborhood depends on it for their daily essential items. Before getting a proper sanctioned loan of Rs 25000 from our partner organisation Chaupal her shop only used to deal in grocery items but now she has expanded her offerings to include daily use medicines etc, as well. Her business has greatly benefitted her whole neighborhood as well as they do not have to travel to different areas to get daily essential. She was a little hesitant to speak in front of camera but she told us more stories as to how her shop has benefitted their whole neighbourhood.