Mahilashakti Micro Foundation

You’ll find us at 104 in VPO Nimriwali, which is out in the Bhiwani district. It’s a rural spot, very different from the busy streets of the capital. Our office at Mahilashakti Micro Foundation is just a simple building in the village. We don’t have a lot of staff or fancy computers. Most of what we do involves sitting down with the local women and talking through things on a personal level. We have a couple of wooden desks and some plastic chairs that we move around depending on how many people show up. The walls could probably use a fresh coat of paint, but that’s not really a priority for us right now. We’re more focused on the paperwork and the accounts. Bhiwani can get quite cold in the winter and very dusty in the summer, so our office feels like a bit of a shelter. We don’t follow a strict corporate schedule; we open up when the work needs to be done and stay until it’s finished. People walk in from the village all day long, so there’s always someone to talk to. We drink plenty of tea and try to keep things moving as best as we can. It’s a small operation, but it’s ours, and we’ve been at it from this same spot for a good while now. It’s just local people working with local people.