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Ishwori Rai's current profile

Professional – Vice President of Mahila Uthan Tatha Sip Biksash Kendra
Personal - Housewife, Mother of 3 children, one son and two daughters.
Residence – Pratappur Village, Hetauda, Nuwakot District.

Ishwori Rai comes from a village called Pratappur, Makwanpur district. She never went to a school when she was child so she had no education when she got married at a very tender age of sixteen with a local farmer. Now she is thirty three years and has three children.

After her marriage she used to be very busy in her household chores and she did not have enough time to think of any thing outside world other than her home. She used to hesitate to go out from home or to talk in front of other people.

Having lived in a joint family for six years after getting married, she and her husband decided to live separatly from other family members. This gave her considerable amount of personal liberty.

In 2002 an active woman of her village named Rina Rai started a non governmental organization named – 'Mahila Utthan Tatha Sip Bikash Kendra' in her village. Rina was also the president of the organization. Ishwori still remembers how fearful she was when Rina asked her to be a member of the organization. She also felt little awkward to join. Because she was not clear what is an organization, what it does and what would be her personal role in it after being a member. And above all she was not sure what would her family say if she joined.

Fortunately, her spouse being understanding than many other Pratappur men, he let her join the organization. He was very understanding when she had to leave her home for meetings and other activities of her organization.

By and by this involvement in the organization, brought a positive change in her life - in her way of thinking, her attitude towards other things, especially about women's life. Now she feels if we need to make a change in our society, it is women who can lead the way to bring the change and they are more effective in doing it. Now she finds this involvement makes her life more meaningful to her.

After being elected as Vice President, she started working in team with other members and started going out of her home to form other women groups in her village. Another very profound fact she shared was that after the formation of women groups in her village, domestic violence against women has decreased significantly.

Later in her life, she also started to understand the importance of education. So she started attending adult education classes that was being provided by another NGOs in her village. Education has helped her to read and write and now she can write her name.

Not only this, she also went to the office of Gharelu with Rina Rai and Sharan Kumari Rai, the treasurer in her organization, with a proposal for sponsoring a sewing and cutting training for her village women. And they have successfully secured funds to train young girls and women in sewing and cutting training.

She expressed her thanks to Tewa for providing a grant for goat raising to the women group in her village. There is a successful case in her village where a poor dalit woman who got a goat with Tewa's grant is now proud owner of seventeen goats which has become a great source of income for her and her family.

She shares other experiences too, like after the goat-raising project, her husband bought few piglets hoping it would generate more income. Later she worked hard raising those piglets and as hoped, it helped to raise significant amount of income. She cannot forget that moment when her husband gave her credit for the success. She used the profit from it to buy a parcel of land in her name. She is proud to be able to gain such trust and support from her husband and to own a property in her name.

She also recalls those time when she would only have negative thoughts like "why should I go out leaving my other important work at home" etc. but now she thinks how important is it to think and work for the betterment of other women in her community. Now she does not hesitate to go out and work to make other women's life prosperous and happy