Empowering India's Rural Poor through Poultry

I am always amazed at how enterprising the women I meet in the villages where we work actually are.  Against some very tough odds, they will seize an opportunity to earn some extra money for their family whenever they can.  And often this comes as a direct result of our Poultry Development Services programme, as they use the income, skills and confidence they have gained from raising chickens to develop a second small enterprise.

When we visited our operations in July this year, we met Jhuma who has done just this.  It was monsoon time and the heavy rains were making living conditions in the villages very hard, with water levels rising and no prospect of a dry day for at least another two months. Despite this, Jhuma welcomed us into her tiny home and proudly showed us her chicken coop full of some very healthy-looking birds. She then offered us some potato crisps and explained that she is using some of her income from selling eggs to help her husband with another small enterprise. They are making and packaging the crisps and selling them at the local train station.  Here’s what she told us about her new life…

"I am extremely happy with the extra income in the family. My husband helps me in both raising chickens and making potato chips and we are more friends now! Thank you!"

Stories like this are so encouraging and reinforce Shivia’s core mission – to empower the poorest to create livelihoods, boost income and inspire permanent change.  To read more stories about the impact of our programmes in West Bengal, please visit our webite here: Impact Stories

Thank you for helping us to help inspiring women like Jhuma.

Links:

• More Impact Stories from West Bengal