A case study of Smt. Deborah Tongwah, Jakrem Village.

Kong Deborah Tongwah is one of the members of Jingkyrmen SHG II Jakrem Village which is formed on 26th November 2014 under the National Rural Livelihood Mission, Implemented by the Block Mission Management Unit of Meghalaya State Rural Livelihood Society Mawkyrwat Block.

Smt. Debora Tongwah of 35yrs a wife of Shri. Madarles Marwein, 37 years old has seven childrens and one orphan that they are taking care of, with a total of 8 children in the family her life is a very challenging as she has to take care of her children. She has a tough life to take care of the family since her husband is only a daily wages worker and the whole family is depending on him for every basic need. Sometimes she manages to support her family by working on somebody field on daily wage.

When she joined the group, she started saving some money. In the beginning she wanted to take a loan but at the same time she was so scared if it’s not to her capacity to repay back. But situation compelled her to take a loan from the group for her child’s treatment. She took about 300 rupees and she was able to repay back the loan in due time. This builds her confidence level and decided to take loan again for some other purposes. On her second time, she took a loan of Rs. 3000.00 for agriculture purpose and she has repaid the loan. The 3rd loan she took was for a business purpose. She took it for Second-hand Clothes Trading with Rs. 10,000/- and she finish paying the 3rd loan as well. At present she has taken a loan for about 25000/- for the same purpose as in the 3rd one and the business is still going on. Her present loan outstanding amount is Rs.20, 000.00 (The 3rd loan is a Bank Loan and the 4th Loan is CIF)

To run the business, Kong Debora has rented a shop of Rs 8000.00 annually in the market and she is quite happy with the clothes trading at Mawkyrwat Market. She sells her clothes only on market days, which is twice a week, she manages to sell with a minimum amount of Rs.1000 to 1500 a day during summer and a maximum sale is around Rs. 8000 to 9000 during winter (October to December) and the profit comes around 50% from the total amount sale.

In the other days, when she is free, she does handicraft/ dry flowers making. Deborah took part in RILANG Festival 2016 at Rohbah Mawkyrwat and managed to sell around Rs.2000. At SARAS Fair 2016 which was held at Malki Ground Shillong she managed to sell around Rs.8000.00, at Sikkim she managed to sell around Rs.9000 and at the village level she sold around Rs. 2500.