My name is Bimala Sunar. I am 30 years old. My family lives in Chorepatan currently. My mother, father, and my husband are the members of my family. I was born in Krishi, in Pokhara. Now, I live with my family in Chorepatan from where I also go to work.
I wake up early in the morning. At 9 am, I have my lunch and come to work. We work throughout the day. At 5 pm, we finish our work and go back home. Since my place is quite far, I usually reach home around 6 pm. I get back to my household chores.

I really like coming to work and spending my day here together with all my colleague sisters. I hope that we can continue working here and that I can further enhance my skills, and all grow further. We can be self-reliant and make our earning through the skills that we have learned at Woven. I am also hopeful that there will be other opportunities here at Woven.

There are times when the work is easy, and everyone around me is in a happy mood smiling, and seeing all this automatically sparks happiness inside me. At home, we have our regular household chores, and spending 9 to 5 at work is mostly a happy time with all colleagues.

I think I am quite capable as I do not have to depend on others for my living. I don’t think I will have to depend on others in the days to come ahead too.

There is a huge difference between women from the village area and women from the cities. Women from the city get to learn a lot of skills and also have the opportunity to utilize it, whereas, in the rural area, we don’t have such opportunities and remain jobless. There aren’t many organizations in rural areas, and rural women can’t make any use of their skills. I think this is the major difference.

I would suggest to young people to get training in skills, to become self-reliant. One needs to learn the skills and work to make their earning and living. Here at Woven, we have uplifted our life by learning the skills so that I would suggest the same to others as well.
I think women need to be provided with more training, and also Nepal government should also focus on making women more self-reliant.

Working here it helped me to be self-reliant, helping me stand on my own feet.

My name is Sita Koirala. I am 30 years old. It has been four years working here.

We have six people in our family. I have two daughters; we live in a joint family. We also have grand-father and grand-mother in our family.
I was born in India, grew up there, and studied there.
Once my father retired, he wanted to go back to Nepal with his family. As the time came, we all migrated to Nepal from India.
Now, I live here at Ratna Chowk in Pokhara, which is around 30 minutes by foot to the office.
I have twin daughters. They are nine years old now. They both study in grade 4. Both of them are doing good in their studies.

I get up at 5 am. First of all, I take a bath and then clean my house. I then make food and wake my kids up. I provide them breakfast. I get my other household chores done during which my kids study and do their homework. At around 8.30 or 9 am, I send my kids to school. After that, I get ready for work and serve food to my husband and other family members.
I then work at the office until 5 pm. When I reach home, I make snacks for my family, and I help my kids with their homework. I then do other household chores. At around 8, we have our dinner.

The time of day I like the most? Once I get back home from work and spend my time with my daughters, I like it the most. All of us share our stories from the day which we spend like 30 min to 1 hour. I really enjoy this moment.

I enjoy doing this work, and it has been beneficial to me. I want to continue supporting my kids and encouraging them to grow into beautiful people. I think most of my dreams are focused on my children.

I have full faith in myself that I can carry on the works, that is what I call my biggest motivation power.

My name is Monika Rai and I am 25 years old. It has been almost four years working here at Woven.
I have a father, mother, and elder sisters, a younger sister, and a younger brother in my family. I come from Bhojpur and currently live together with my younger sister in Pokhara. My sister and I both work at the company. My parents still live in Bhojpur. To get to Bhojpur it takes around 13 hours of travel by bus and 4 hours walk.

I wake up lazily at around 7 am. I freshen up and then directly come to work. I start my work, and at about 12, I have my lunch. The same work continues, and I work until evening. I also work overtime, like 2 to 3 hours extra, to earn some more money. I live very close to the office.

Working here, along with my colleagues, is something I enjoy.
Working at Woven is pretty satisfactory as of now. I would like to learn new things in life and move ahead. I am also interested in teaching and sharing my skills with the newcomer sisters and would like to move forward in life.

I would like to continue working here and enhance my skills further for my growth ahead. With this, I can always make my living anywhere I go.

In the village there is a lack of facilities; therefore, life is very different. In the village, there are schools, but it lacks quality education. In the city, there are more opportunities and more chances to learn skills to be self-reliant. In the village, there are no such opportunities to learn any technical skills.

Most of the women are very backward in many things. I would like to say to women to gain more technical skills as possible. Try to move forward and learn new things.

For the women who are getting an education, I hope they could achieve something from their knowledge. For working women, learn technical skills and move forward so that they don't need to be dependent on others and can live independently.