Before the hills come alive with the hustle and bustle of everyday life & business, Selvakumar heads to his farms. The walk is a constant reminder of how much his once tranquil hill town of Ooty, in the South Indian State of Tamil Nadu, has become a cacophony of sounds, courtesy its growing popularity as a tourist destination. But that is not all that has changed; his farms are also a reminder of how farming has rapidly changed from the days of his forefathers.

Disclaimer: This is not a regular Women’s Day article that celebrates the day to tell you what you already know.

Rome was not built in a day. Plants do not grow in a day. And women cannot be empowered in just one day.

So today, we’re here to celebrate every other day that pushes us forward towards our goal, how small efforts repeated day in and day out, year in and year out are growing forests & moving mountains.

After 10 days of CSS training on making LED bulbs, a group of 20 members (6 male and 14 female) from Kollapathy Panchayat in Thuriyur block, Trichy district formed an enterprise group (EG) and registered it as Challenger LED Bulb. In this group, four male members are physically challenged. All the members in the group have completed their secondary level of education and three are undergraduates.

Thirteen members formed an EG in the name of their village Elavampatti, which is located in Tharamangalam block in Salem district. They were trained together during February 2022. Five years ago, in their village most of them used to make foot-mats, which their parents were also doing, but due to very low income and the cost fixed by middle men most of them were making loss.

Aiding rural, household economy through governmental interventions is a less spoken success story. Mrs Shanthi’s journey to becoming a successful entrepreneur is a case in point.

Shanthi was born to an agricultural family in Melamathur panchayat, Madurai. She obtained education till the 10th grade, after which her father did not educate her, due to age old traditions. Getting a girl child educated in Madurai, a city once known for pervasive female infanticide, was in itself is an arduous feat.