Rani drops the dark yellow pieces of turmeric root into the grinding machine. The small production room quickly fills with a curry-like aroma. On a shelf nearby, small bags of ground turmeric, cumin and coriander are stacked with the other spices used in traditional Indian cooking. From behind the bright yellow veil protecting her face, Rani revels in her role as lead manager.
Rani first approached SOS Children’s Villages two years ago as a struggling mother of three, hoping to expand her small sewing business so she could afford to send her children to school. The SOS family strengthening program in Tilak Nagar, on the outskirts of Delhi, India, provided access to a loan—and Rani increased her monthly income by more than 900%.
Rani soon realized there was more need in her community, so she banded together with 11 other women to start a spice operation. As the lead manager, she oversees training and work assignments, from grinding and packaging to marketing and selling.
Thanks to the seed money, guidance, and financial services that SOS family strengthening programs provide, not only do aspiring entrepreneurs like Rani start their own businesses and support their families, they also innovate new ways to lift up others around them.
New projects like the spice cooperative are vetted before being funded, and support groups act as startup incubators where projects are evaluated and tested.
Niharika Chamola, the Assistant Village Director in Tilak Nagar, explains, “We have a special objective of empowering women. If the mother is empowered, she can bring up the children and support the family in a much better way… Then the whole family is empowered, and the whole society is empowered.”
Having experienced these positive effects firsthand, Rani hopes to help the other women in the spice business lift themselves out of poverty. She adds, “Like our parents, we are living in poverty. We want our children to have better chances in life, to be better educated.”