Alternative livelihoods for 500 ragpicker families

This Wednesday 12th July is GlobalGiving's Bonus Day.

Meet Rizia.  Rizia lives in Kolkata’s Topsia canalside squatter camp. She lives in a shelter with no toilet and no running water: she has to queue twice a day to collect drinking water at one of just two taps for this community of 710 families.  Most of these families have traditionally survived on rag picking – collecting  and sorting  other people’s waste.  But since the introduction of waste compactors in Kolkata, it is much harder to make a living. The aim of this project is to help these vulnerable families establish alternative livelihoods through microfinance.

Last March Rizia took out a Rs10,000 (£120) grant under this livelihood scheme to invest in her sandal (chappal) selling business.  Inside 10 months she had repaid the loan in full; her business is thriving and she told me when I visited her that she is saving up for a bigger home for her household of eight. Like many of the men, Rizia’s husband is disabled through years of backbreaking labour, so he is rarely able to work. As a condition of the grant, Rizia ensures that her children remain in education. When I visited Rizia in February she proudly showed me her bank passbook, her livelihood scheme documentation and the record of the savings that she and other women in her SHG (self-help group) have accumulated.

I think Rizia is magnificent: she is friendly humorous, courageous, optimistic, smart and hard working. She is a leader in her community and fully understands how to make the best of the opportunities that Tiljala SHED and donors like you offer her. There are many more like Rizia… 

And the Rs10,000 grant, fully repaid by Rizia, will be used again and again to help others like Rizia to improve their lives.

On Wednesday at 2 pm BST or 9 am EDT you have an opportunity to make your donation go 40% further. Please set a reminder and make a contribution, however small, to help empower other women like Rizia