The Lady Who Believed in Herself

Neha Khatoon, a promising talent who is challenged by poverty and unfavourable circumstances fights back with self-belief and CREDO support.

Neha is one such young woman who has fire in the belly and dreams in her eyes to soar against the opposing currents.

She is the youngest child in the family who was brought up by her Naani (grandmother) since the age of six due to poverty and unfortunate twists and turns of fate. She studied in a Bengali medium school till Class – VIII but once again had to take a premature about-turn from studies owing to unfavourable circumstances in life. Neha understood very early in life the importance of standing on her feet. To be economically self-reliant she took basic stitching lessons from a local tailoring training centre. She also learnt Urdu and Arabic and started teaching these languages to the local children. In spite of doing everything possible to win over her antagonistic circumstances, Neha was floating like a rudderless boat till she met her benevolent Rotarian mentor Jayshree Sanghvi.  Rotarian Jayshree introduced her to CREDO.

Rotary Club of Calcutta Chowrenghee, where Rotarian Jayshree is the Club Director has partnered with the Charitable Trust ‘CREDO‘ – a non-profit empowerment project.

Introduced Neha to their training and entrepreneurship development program – ‘Mission Swabhimaan‘.

Here Neha received training in the tailoring of premium shirts for men while receiving a stipend along with employment and entrepreneurial opportunity. CREDO envisioned an Incubation Centre for Start-Ups, Rehabilitation & Empowerment (IC-SURE) for the underprivileged people in society.

CREDO IC-SURE started its pilot project at Kolkata by creating a state-of-the-art garment manufacturing facility to incubate potential entrepreneurs from weaker section of society who can be trained and employed to contribute towards nation’s economic progress.

Neha’s grandmother happens to stay adjacent to the CREDO IC-SURE facility and advised Neha to try her luck at CREDO, assist by Rotary Club of Calcutta Chowrenghee.

At CREDO IC-Sure Incubation Centre, Neha ‘unlearnt’ whatever she was taught in the local tailoring training centre and relearnt the tricks and techniques of garment stitching as per international quality standards. She admits, “Here I learnt to give quality finish to different types of garments by maintaining exceptional manufacturing standards.” CREDO training gave Neha’s imagination wings and she tried her hands at creating a wide gamut of demo products like foot wares, bags, shirts, aprons, doormats, caps, kitchen gloves, and refrigerator cover.

Neha now knows how to tailor men’s garments using advanced Japanese Technology JUKI machines and how to align all the parts of a mill fabric shirts for men with seamless stitching. Neha is well on her way to become an expert in manufacturing quality shirts for men with perfect enduring finishing.

Neha is not only a fast and passionate learner but also an excellent team worker who loves to work with the CREDO family. She is still able to pursue her other interests like teaching Urdu and Arabic to local children while picking up the expertise for tailoring quality garments at CREDO. She loves the amicable environment at the CREDO IC SURE Incubation Centre and treats this place as the launchpad for her dreams to build her own enterprise someday. This enterprise will be yet another initiative that will inspire and nurture women like her to achieve their dreams.