Why do we love working with women at Sattva Nepal?
Well, because they make everything better!
I still remember when we were still at a very early stage looking for didis willing to join us in our crazy idea to empower Nepal through spices. At that time, Priyanka and I were struggling with a huge challenge, “Garlic peeling”. It sounds funny but when you have to peel around 5 kg of garlic in half a day without any machinery, that sure can be a nightmare. But things started changing when Mayadevi, one of our early team members joined us. She came up with an idea that reduced the garlic peeling time by half and it was so simple that we kept on thinking, “seriously, it was that easy?”
Curious? Well, all you had to was to rub the garlic with some mustard oil and leave it for a bit and later on, just rub and peel it off. That is when we realized the power of experience. This is just one of the many examples when our didis figured out a simple solution for problems that seemed huge to deal with. Our didis have been our backbone at Sattva.
They have been our cheerleaders and our biggest critics. I will never forget our long walks to shops in Nepalgunj when all of us carried our packets and went from shop to shop to sell our products. Every time, we got rejected, they remarked, “Don’t worry, there is always the next one.” We celebrated our first sale with samosas and cold drinks. We also faced many many rejections together and in all of this, I have never heard them say, “Well, you are not cut out to do this.” We have found our biggest supporters in them.
This is why, at Sattva Nepal, we want to continue growing our women partners. So far we are a 100% women-led company. Our target is to make Sattva an encouraging and empowering space for women of different backgrounds and ethnicities to become financially independent by leveraging their expertise. We also aim to further invest in projects creating positive narratives around women’s leadership across the different economic and social statuses of Nepal.