VILLUPURAM: Suriya hates to recall the suffering she has undergone. The 32-year-old from Mundiyampakkam, married at the age of 19 to a ruffian of 39 years old, was “forced to drop out of college and run a family with an awfully abusive man.”Suriya’s husband died six years ago, in-laws disowned her, and relatives dissed her every day. With two children aged 14 and 12, Suriya wished for nothing but financial independence.
It was her sister M Silambarasi who lent her a helping hand at a time of extreme despair. Silambarasi took her to a workshop by the Rural Self Employment Training Institutes (RSETI) on cosmetic makeovers conducted at Villupuram from December 2017 to January 2018. Suriya’s life took a U-turn from there.
RSETI, a union government scheme to skill up the rural below-poverty-line (BPL) youth, aims to mitigate unemployment with the help of nationalised banks. After the training, the sisters jointly came up with a small-scale make-up artistry business.
“Back then, I lived in a single-room house with my children. When we decided to launch a business, I moved all items to a corner and set up a minimal salon in the other corner of my living room,” reminisces Suriya. Over the years, she and her sister jointly set up a beauty parlour in Mundiyampakkam, with Rs 1 lakh loan from a nationalised bank.
“My first clients were my neighbours. Their response encouraged me to start doing make-up for others too. I began by charging Rs 1,000 per client in 2018 for bridal and other major makeup. Now I charge Rs 15,000 for full bridal makeup and we even use the latest technology including an airbrush,” says the successful entrepreneur who also opened another outlet in Villupuram town last year.
Similarly, 40-year-old J Lakshmi from Orathur who stopped her education after Cass 8 due to family conditions, also weaved a new life with the help of RSETI scheme. Lakshmi attended a jute bag production workshop in 2021 after seeing an advertisement on a WhatsApp group. “The training lasted for two months and I decided to open a jute bag production unit in the fourth month,” she says.
Lakshmi was not alone in this venture. H Thendral (37) who attended the same workshop and shared similar ideas joined her to build Aruvi Jute Products.“We started out with two tailoring machines in a small space at a commercial complex in Villupuram, with Rs 1 lakh loan. We make jute bags, thamboola pai (return gift bags used in Tamil weddings), and small cloth clutches whose perfect stitching earned us customers' trust. We gained clients, some even from abroad. We expanded the unit in 2022 with a subsidised loan of Rs 10 lakh from the state government,” adds Lakshmi.
Two years after their beginning, Lakshmi and Thendral now run two units, with 10 workers, while 50 workers work from home. The women make Rs 1 lakh monthly which is used to repay the loan, rent for the units and salary to their staff. They have so far shipped over a thousand bags to the US and New Zealand.
K Anita, the district coordinator of RSETI, had roped in over a thousand women, identified their talents, facilitated them with loan procedures, and helped set up their own businesses. “Women come in to attend our workshops with zero expectation and go back with a heart full of new dreams. All I want to see is their lives changing for the better,” says Anita.