Lalmati Devi

Name: Lalmati Devi

Age: 32

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She is married and had two children. About 1 year ago her son died from an illness. One night he woke up complaining of a headache. He began vomiting but there was no way to get him to a hospital and he died. Currently, Lalmati struggles with the depression and sadness that followed her son's death. Lalmati is also abused. Her husband fights with her constantly and hits her often. Recently she was blessed with another baby. She and her husband both are out of work. She lives in a village called Fatepuhr Chandila. Lalmati went to school until second grade. She can read Hindi and she is now going every day from 3:30-5:30 to a government place to learn how to sew.  

 

It is often said, “If you feed a man a fish, you can feed him for a day, but if you teach a man how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”  

We look for avenues to equip women and men in poverty with the opportunity to start a business of their own that can help them provide fortheir basic needs of food, shelter, and education for their families for a lifetime. 

Their businesses also invest into large projects we are doing in their communities and throughout the world. 

In 2012 we launched our first sewing microbusiness training, teaching 21 impoverished women how to start a sewing business of their own. Through donations from Proceeds for Poverty and other one-time gifts, we buy a sewing machine and iron for each trainee. 

We train them in simple business principles and sewing skills that will help them begin a seamstress business in their communities and villages. 

We also train them to make products for GPPD that we will give away for a donation.  Once they earn a portion of the cost of their machines by making a few products for us, we then pay them for each additional product they make. 

The proceeds we receive from any donations for the products go toward a larger project to help people in poor communities throughout the world,  a fee for labor, shipping the product (if neccesary) and the cost of the materials.