In Sri Lanka’s hill country, five women transform hardship into enterprise with UN Women’s support
Date:
Author: Tuan Rahim*
Bandarawela, Sri Lanka — In Sri Lanka’s hill country, where the morning mist clings to the trees and the roads curve like a question mark through green hills, women, many of them once invisible in their communities, are reshaping their lives in makeshift workshops and village storefronts.
P.R. Wijeyanthi, Tharuka Dilshini, J.A. Ganesha, Muthulingam Nishanthi and Niluka Kumari are among the almostwomen entrepreneurs who received training and help to scale up their businesses through UN Women’s project, Advancing the National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security to Address Socio-economic Challenges in Sri Lanka. The one-year project, which ended in May, was funded by the Republic of Korea, with Chrysalis implementing the women’s economic empowerment (WEE) component among others. The trainings were done in three areas of Badulla District, Uva Province.
None of the five women profiled here had adequate business knowledge when they joined the training; now they are growing their businesses.
Crafting bags
At her home in Bandarawela, Wijeyanthi, 57, stitches bags and shoes and distributes them to roadside shops.
She travels alone to find fabric. It’s not easy as a woman with a disability. But she says, “I never wait for things to get easier. I just learned to keep going.”
“Before the training, we didn’t plan or budget,” she says. “Now we track our profits and losses. My hope is that my business will contribute to the economy — and to our country.”
Making golden chips
If you take a walk through the winding streets of the small town of Ella, you’ll probably stumble upon a packet of crispy and golden chips - of banana, jackfruit or sweet potato.
Dilshini is the woman behind those chips. At the training, she learned to manage cash flow, calculate profit margins, and think long-term.
“I’ve seen a big improvement and development in my business,” she says. “Through the training, I have also gotten a machine to make dehydrated fruits, and I hope to expand my products with this."
Sewing and growing
In a corner of her home in Bandarawela, the hum of sewing machines is constant. Ganesha, 38, employs three women now, but this didn’t come easily. For years, she barely scraped by with subcontracting jobs, caring for a mother who is visually impaired and a son preparing for exams.
The training showed her how to plan, manage time and scale up. With the additional sewing machine she received after the training, she’s stitching skirts, blouses, leggings, and slowly expanding into T-shirts.
“My dream?” she said. “A full garment factory, with a sub-line and my own lines.”
Preserving tradition through batik
Batik is a slow art of hot wax, careful dyeing, and steaming the cloth to hold its stories. Nishanthi, 29, knows this best. From her home in Bandarawela, she runs Bavan Batik Center, a name now quietly known in the estate communities.
From 5 saris a day before the training, she now produces 10. Her time is managed, her plan is real.
“I get to live life on my terms and care for my mother,” she said. “That, to me, is success.”
Growing more mushrooms
Inside the modest home she shares with her husband and two children in Ella, Kumari, 35, is growing more mushrooms. What started in one small room has now expanded into four.
The training taught her production techniques, packaging and market research. After the training, she received a boiler to help streamline her work.
“Even if I hadn’t gotten the equipment,” she says, “I’m grateful for what I’ve learned. That’s the real gift.”
With the new equipment, Kumari expanded from one variety of mushrooms and 500 grow bags to three varieties and 2,000 grow bags. She hopes to expand to 4,000 bags in the near future and hire more women in her village.