Adding to basket
For five years, Basanti worked alongside her husband running a medium-sized restaurant, or as the locals say, a “hotel business,” in their town in Odisha, a state in Eastern India. Together, they were well-known and respected members of the community. Last December, however, her husband got ill by a serious disease and now he is not very well to do some work, leaving her with the business to manage and two children to support on her own. She was devastated.
Basanti is a strong woman, but it is a lot of pressure to run a business with six employees and support her children, especially in a community where most of the businesses are run by men. Nevertheless, she is determined to fulfill the dream of her husband to renovate and improve the hotel. They used to envision turning it into a full-service air-conditioned establishment. Through hard work, she has saved 70,000 INR for this project and is taking out this loan. With this, she will have enough to build new counters and buy an air conditioner.
Basanti, along with her group has requested this loan and she will use her portion pay for an air conditioner and to build new counters for her restaurant. She is so grateful for Kiva and People’s Forum to reaching out to the group like Radhe Shyam Shg and helping them improve their livelihoods.
In this group: Manju, Basanti, Kasturi, Laxmi, Indira, Bhanu, Shanti, Kunti, Lakshmi, Jhanaka
