KATHMANDU: Rabina Tamang (28) lives in Bhaktapur currently. Before a year, she was dependent upon her husband's nominal income to make all household expenses. But now, she feels herself empowered as she is engaged in own business.

For this mother of two girls, all the change was possible after she participated in a saving group operated by the Child Development Society, a non-government organisation, in her community.

A carpet factory labourer, Tamang feels that her engagement in the saving group has economically empowered her.

"Besides my job, we are doing collective vegetable farming and grocery businesses as a group," she says, "The earning has helped us buy stationery, books and uniforms for our children to send them school."

What more, Tamang now can read and write after attending literacy cum self-employment classes run by the CDS! "I can read Nepali newspapers," the confident woman, originally from Solukhumbu district of east Nepal, shares, smiling. "I can calculate all transactions not only of my home, but of my group also."

According to the organisation, as many as 3,570 working women of 14 districts are engaged in such activities with its support. "We have been running such activities as we cannot bring children to school unless their mothers are economically empowered," shares CDS Programme Coordinator Pradip Kumar Shrestha.

The women collectively have a total capital of Rs 26.87 million in their small businesses, he added.

It has been running 182 literacy and business skills classes for these women.