Kumari Barik

Kumari and her family live in a village in Orissa, India. She has two  grown children who are pursuing an education.  Her husband, who worked a  daily wage laborer, died of kidney failure few years ago. She was  struggling to survive when she heard of Empowered Poor  micro-lending project. She applied and was granted a loan to start a  grocery business. She started to make a good income from her little  business until another store opened in her community and her customers  were divided. As a result, initially her income went down for a while  but she did not give up. Slowly old customers came back due to her  honest and friendly dealings and her income grew. She was able to save  enough money to buy a small piece of land which she leases to grow crops  which makes an additional income. Now she is saving part of her profits  for children’s education. She thanks Empowered Poor for helping her to start a grocery business.