Mauritius: Priya's I-Story

I am Priya, born in Ferney and actually living in Beau Vallon. My mother worked on a sugar estate while my father was a labourer. I have five siblings and I am the second child in the family. Unfortunately we were very poor and all that we could afford was our basic necessities. I still remember that I used plastic bags to carry my school stuffs. As I did not have any interest in studying, I stopped schooling at the CPE level. Therefore, I stayed at home to do all the household chores and to look after my younger siblings. Moreover, we all had to help our parents in the sugar cane field. When I was 19 years old, my parents decided to get me married and I had an arranged marriage.When I got married I stayed at my mother-in-law’s place and she was friendly with me. My father-in-law had already passed away before I entered the family. My husband was working in the sugar estate and I was a housewife. Soon after marriage, I got pregnant and I gave birth to a baby girl. My husband was very happy. My life was much better than it was at my parents’ place. Most of the time my daughter was staying with my parents but when she was ten years old she returned back home. After 13 years of marriage my son was born. Unfortunately, three months later my husband passed away. It was at this point in time that my life turned upside down. I did not know what to do and life became difficult once again. Therefore I started working in a factory situated in Floreal. I worked there for five years then I left and joined the Summit factory where I worked for ten years. After its closure I had to work as servant. When I go to work, Uma and Birjah, my neighbors, used to babysit my kids and it was free of cost. They had helped me a lot during my difficult times. Even though I was working I did not have enough money to organize the wedding of my daughter. Luckily, my family has helped me to arrange for the wedding. As for my son, he has completed his Form Five and later he followed an IT course. At present, life is very difficult as I am not working and I depend on my widow’s pension. With my pension I can only afford to buy the basic groceries, pay the electricity and water bills. In addition my son is unemployed and is in search of a job but in vain!I am following this training with Gender Links so as to increase my skills and know-how and I hope that this will help me to have a better future. I expect to learn new things so that I can start a business in association with the other women following the same training.  I join this course as I believe that it will help me financially in the future. I think I will have to take a loan to start the business. I wish by 2017, the business will already be established. In 5 years I hope that my life would be better off, I will be able to build my house and my son to get a job in the same business if he is still unemployed.