A mother of five, Prafulla (name changed), was struggling to feed her family. The agriculture in her village had become unreliable. Due to the change in climate and poor resources, the family could not make enough money. It was difficult for her to provide educational opportunities for her children. The only asset she had was cultivable land with trees like Kusum Ber. But she did not possess the knowledge to make the most of her existing resources. It was only in 2014 that Udyogini’s team entered the area, where she attended a mobilisation meeting with the other villagers. She was informed of the uses of Kusum and Ber as hosts for lac cultivation and its benefits as an alternate source of income. She was so mighty influenced that, knowing she had everything she needed to cultivate lac, she convinced her husband to attend a training on the scientific cultivation of the same.
In the next training session, she enrolled her name and attended the sessions despite her hectic schedule of managing household chores and farm work. Post-completion, her passion to start a new source of income was very inspiring. All we did was support her with an initial supply of good-quality lac brood. She used the 4 kilo brood to cultivate lac effectively.
Despite challenges like the inability to spray medicine on taller host plants and the rigorous hard work required, she did not give up. Her enthusiasm inspired her husband to come forward and help her. As it was a six-month crop, in between she was attending other training programmes being organised by Udyogini in her area, which included backyard poultry management. Right in the first cycle, she earned 32,000 INR only from lac cultivation. She was so happy with the progress that she used her first income to buy books and educational material for her children. In the year 19-20, she earned 55,360 INR, which motivated her to further mobilise women in her community to take up alternate sources of income, especially lac cultivation.
Today, she is an emerging woman leader in the community who is not only mobilising women but also representing them. From cultivating Lac, the group has now moved forward to adding value to it. With Udyogini, these women have started getting trained to make jewellery from lac. It is stories like that of Prafulla that motivate us to keep going, even in the toughest of times.
