Bijeesha Budhathoki
April 1, 2021
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In her childhood, Shyam Badan Shrestha, with her mother, used to wake up at 2 am and knit caps under the light of a kerosene lamp every day. Little did Shrestha know that she was not only knitting the caps but also weaving her pathway to success.
As she has been told, Shrestha shares, “My father died before my birth, when my mother was still pregnant, and as a single woman in a deeply patriarchal society, my mom raised me by weaving.”
Years later, Shrestha also turned to handicrafts to earn and support her mother and children, after she lost her teaching job in the early 1980s. Decades down the road further capitalising on her childhood skill, at the age of 74, she still runs a company that has set an example of indigenous, locally resourced enterprise in Nepal.