Crafting a ₹500 note — Women Empowerment through Livelihood generation

Women empowerment through livelihood generation

In Raura, a quiet village in Bareilly district, Shanti begins her day long before the sun rises.

She lights the chulha, brews tea, and prepares rotis with her two daughters. Her husband sharpens a sickle while the girls pack leftover sabzi from the night before. The four of them — Shanti, her husband, and their daughters — walk to the fields to work for the village landlord.

They transplant, weed, and harvest together. The Seth pays for all four workers, but the payment is always handed to her husband. It’s how it has always been.

Shanti never complains. But she also never asks. Her hands do the work. But her name is never on the money.

A few months ago, something shifted. A training began at the local gaushala. Women were learning to make diyas, incense sticks, havan samagri, and rakhis from cow dung.

Shanti joined.

She had spent her life cleaning gobar, but this was different. She was now shaping it, drying it in the sun, and packing it with care. Every afternoon, after finishing her household chores, she would walk to the gaushala and work quietly alongside other women. Her hands, always strong, now moved with purpose.

And then came the day she was paid — ₹500, in cash. Her own Cash.

She didn’t speak. She didn’t smile wide. She simply folded the note neatly, twice, and slipped it into a secret pocket she had stitched into her blouse. She had sewn that pocket months ago, silently, hoping one day she might use it.

She bought a tiny bottle of sindoor — the bright red one in the glass tube she always admired at the shop counter, but never had the courage to ask for. She didn’t need it. But she wanted it. And that was enough. Something she had wanted to do for years.

She put ₹100 in her steel box at home — her first savings. Kept the rest to spend in the house and show off to her husband.

It wasn’t just ₹490.

It was the first money with her name on it.

Not shared. Not handed over. Not explained.

Earned with dignity. Spent with choice.

Shanti still wakes early. Still works in the fields. Still cooks, cleans, and cares for her family.

But now, she also walks to the gaushala each afternoon — not as someone helping, but as someone earning.

That ₹500 didn’t change her world overnight.

But it changed her place in it.

This quiet shift was made possible through Project Govardhan, run by Dyvigya Care Wellness Foundation (DYCWF).

Through training and meaningful work, the project empowers rural women and others through livelihood generation by turn cow dung into sustainable products and earn fair incomes. In villages like Raura, where women have long been invisible in the economy, this work gives them more than just earnings — it gives them a voice, a role, and quiet power.

Sometimes, change doesn’t come with noise. It comes in the soft red line of sindoor across the forehead, a packet of pads carried home without asking, and a stitched pocket finally used for money that was always hers to earn.