Tag: Stories of Change

Daud Shaikh, who loves his family and constantly travels across State lines to spend time with them, recently realised how identity documents can add value to his life

In 2011, Daud Shaikh, then an 18-year-old farmer, migrated from his village in Jharkhand to Mumbai. He managed to find work as a construction worker in the city. Ten years on, Daud works as a mason at the Shapoorji Pallonji construction site in Powai, Mumbai. 

Prior to his marriage, he used to stay in the city for one-two years at a stretch. Now a father of three, he shuttles between his village and the city every three-four months despite his economic compulsions.

Ibrahim wants to earn more money, get a better job, and have a family, but the COVID-19 pandemic has made his goals harder to achieve.

Eldest of 8 siblings, Ibrahim moved from his hometown in Kathiya district in Bihar to Delhi, in February 2020. Fresh out of high school, he migrated to the big city hoping to earn money to supplement the income of his father, who works as a daily wager in Bihar. Soon after he managed to find a job as a construction worker at a site in Gurgaon, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and all construction activities were banned. Ibrahim, who was then barely 17, was thrown into unprecedented uncertainty.

Sudam Kumar, who recently received his PAN card, is looking forward to the benefits and support the identity document will provide construction workers like himself

Sudam Kumar, who used to be a farmer in Bihar, decided to leave his hometown with his family when he turned 18, so that he could find a better livelihood in the big city. He arrived in Noida in 2014 as a migrant worker, and eventually found work in the construction industry. When the COVID-19 lockdown was enforced in 2020, Sudam

Sonu Kumari, a single mother who works as a construction worker in Uttar Pradesh, discovered that understanding her government scheme entitlements will open up a world of opportunities

When Sonu Kumari

Construction worker Kundan Prasad is thankful to have had a labour card before the onset of the pandemic, because it enabled him to sustain his family through the lockdowns even when he had no means to earn a livelihood.

Kundan Prasad is a 30-year-old construction labourer at a site in Noida. He moved to the National Capital Region in 2015, from the Latehar district in Jharkhand, in the hope of financially supporting his family of six.

Mahavir Rai, who works as a construction worker, recently understood how getting a BOCW card would help him secure a better future for his children.

35-year-old Mahavir Rai starts his day at 4 in the morning. He cooks breakfast and is ready to leave for work by 8 a.m. Mahavir works at the ATS construction site in Noida where he does shuttering work.

Meet Beautician Bano, a fiercely determined entrepreneur and mother of three, who rose above all odds from sweeping a beauty parlour to owning her own.

Since she was a child, Fairoza was fond of studying and learning new things; but due to familial constraints, she was unable to pursue her dreams of being educated. She was married at the age of 16.

Unfortunately, her marriage was not a happy one. For 12 years Fairoza

Self-dependent, resilient and driven, Santosh Sharma and her husband Rajinder Sharma continue to face challenges with grit despite multiple challenges.

Mrs. Santosh Sharma, 37, runs a manufacturing business along with her husband Rajinder Sharma (both of them are orthopaedically challenged) from their home in Delhi. They manufacture and sell various types of hand-made and machine-made cotton wicks and other essential pooja items (festival products) via B2B and B2C channels, exhibitions, and online sales channels like Indiamart and Instamojo.

The establishment of their business in 2018 was closely tied with support from ATPAR (www.atpar.in), an organization that provides Entrepreneurship Development and Mentoring  support to entrepreneurs with disabilities. They decided to start this home-based manufacturing enterprise after they attended an Entrepreneurship Development Training session conducted by ATPAR where they learned the manufacturing process. Santosh and Rajinder Sharma have grown to have three people under their employment in the time since, and have started getting international orders, while continuing to receive ATPAR

Warli artisan Yamini is proud to be an earning member of her family in a time of crisis, and hopes to inspire her sons to be independent and resilient.

Yamini, who had started out as a tailor, now has additional skills to boast about. A 35-year-old from Maharashtra, Yamini migrated from her home village, Jalgaon Jilla, to the city of Bhiwandi to earn a better livelihood.

Through her Bachat Gat (Self Help Group), she started attending the stitching training workshops conducted by TISSER in 2018. Having worked as a tailor, she was used to stitching blouses and saree falls (a piece of clothing attached to the hem of a saree), but with additional training she learnt to make newer pieces of clothing like jackets etc. It was in one such training session that TISSER representatives introduced her to Warli art. 

Her husband, the primary breadwinner of the family, works as a driver for private cab service companies. His monthly income of around ?15,000 was insufficient for family expenses, including the education of their two sons, which eventually required them to rely on informal money lenders. 

The uncertainty created by COVID-19 and the fear of her husband