3/29/16 (Tuesday, March 29, 2016) 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM

The final stop was to the Dal Mill project, in the Saykheda village where we talked to many women regarding their entrepreneurship goals. Here we interviewed around eight women and got a feel of each of their situations. Some of these women were widows and others were wives of farmers that can barely make enough money to sustain their families’ lives. These women are chosen by the group’s president Bharti Pawar, who picks the women in the most dire situation. Based on their personality and strengths, each woman is to be assigned to a different aspect, whether it is the marketing aspect, the manufacturing aspect, or the accounting aspects.

The dal mill consists of three parts:

This part of the machine takes raw pulses and sorts them in a cylindrical grader.
This part of the Dal Mill consists of rollers with multiple outlets. Each outlet will output the split pulses in different stages.
The final stage in the process is to dry the split pulses for 3⁄4 hours and then polish them so that the product is ready to be packaged and shipped.
When I was talking to the women I found out that one woman was a widow four eleven years and she was only 31 years old; we found out that she was married at age 15! This shocked me because I was a fifteen-year-old girl interviewing them and asking them about their hardships, but I could never imagine being married at my age because of financial issues. This again struck me in the core, and I once again shed some tears with these women. This added more fuel to the passionate flame within me that I would help them in some way, in any way possible, and make their Dal Mill a success.

So, all in all, as you can see, I had an eventful and emotional trip to Yavatmal. I learned a lot about the proactive projects: project Udaan, Save Indian Farmers widows, and the Dal Mill project. It was a remarkable and picturesque city, and the small town villages were absolutely impeccable. I am so grateful that I could make this trip happen all thanks to Mr. Hemant Joshi and Mr. Vijay Kadre. I am thankful that I am no longer ignorant to the situations that the peoples of Yavatmal are exposed to, and that I learned so much about the various proactive projects. I now have even more of a drive to help the farmers and their families. I, Chandni Shah, pledge to help these people in any way possible. And I hope that you the reader, wherever you are in the world, do the same. Humanity still prevails.