Srimati Sardar is twenty-seven years old. She lives with her husband and four young children in a small house in Jhaltala, a settlement of poor farms near India’s border with Bangladesh. Too low for large-scale crop cultivation and too shallow for fisheries, Jhaltala lies in the gateway to the Sundarbans, renowned as the world’s largest single block of mangroves adapted to a saline environment. Prior to involvement with Trickle Up, Srimati and her husband, who has a disability, earned an annual income of $227, or 10¢ per person/day. Their income was unstable and relied on earnings from Srimati’s work harvesting and selling crabs, her husband’s work as an unskilled laborer when work was available, and modest sharecropping.

Upon becoming a Trickle Up participant, Srimati’s situation began to improve. Trickle Up’s seed capital grant of about $100 funded the purchase of two goats, ten ducks, materials to build an animal shelter, veterinary medicine and animal feed. Srimati also received a subsistence allowance for the first twenty-five weeks of her training in herd-cultivation, which helped her weather the period before her new assets (livestock) would yield profits (saleable offspring). As of November 2008, she had sold two baby goats.

Srimati received intensive, personalized training in livestock management, enabling her to rear animals as a sustainable enterprise. Through this new livelihood activity, she created a regular source of income that is helping her family gain independence from unpredictable income earning activities involving spending ten hours a day in waist-deep water, or seeking out migrant work far from home.

With their additional income, Srimati and her husband were able to lease more land for sharecropping and invest in additional livestock: a pig and a hen with chicks. Srimati has also been able to plan for her family’s future. As a member of a self-help savings group, Srimati deposits 21¢ every week to save for her children’s education, farming investments and future medical needs. Because her financial condition has improved, a local shopkeeper is now willing to extend credit to her for small purchases, thus increasing her financial options. Srimati hopes to continue to expand her livelihood activities.

The success of her enterprise has also empowered Srimati in her marriage and in the community at large. She and her husband engage in joint decision-making, and she has gained control of issues related to family planning, child vaccination and her own employment outside the home. In her community, Srimati has participated in the Village Development Committee and a government-sponsored health awareness meeting.

Trickle Up hopes Srimati Sardar will be able to expand her livelihood activities using her assets and steady income, and continue to access loans from her savings group to meet household expenses and support her family’s livelihood activities.