Aziza is 32 years old and mother of four kids. She lives in Qotan Mast village of Gosfandi district, Sarepul province and her husband is a farmer. She says “like majority of other women in my village, I did not have any skills and never had the opportunity to attended school. My husband had to borrow from relatives because my eldest daughter was sick, she is 10 years now and attends school. I always wanted to provide a helping hand to overcome financial challenges and my husband’s income is not enough for all our needs and emergencies. We were in depth and life was difficult”.
Aziza joined Baran Self Help Group and attended regular group meetings, received Group Management, Microfinance and Business Development Services (BDS) training. She chose to join tailoring vocational skills training and received enterprise startup kit upon successful completion of the training.
Now she earns around AFN 5,000 per month. She says “now I am a very popular business woman in the society, women come from far villages because they prefer my work. My customers are satisfied with my work and that makes me happy. Now I am able to contribute in family expanses so that my husband can pay the loan.”
Aziza has also learnt the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic calculations through HiH Af’s Life skills training for entrepreneurs which helps her in recording income and expenses.
She Says “I am very thankful to HiH Af for the support and training. HiH Af helps women like me so we can have a job and generate income to help our families.”
Aziza is planning to buy another swing machine so that she can have someone as assistant, she says “the assistant will help me generate more income as well as it will help assistant to learn tailoring and have a business in the future.”
