Enterprise promoting home-based industry

ABBOTTABAD: A successful female enterprise, Kimmy’s Bags and Luggage Accessories, is promoting home-based micro-industry besides providing a conducive work environment to women in accordance with cultural norms.

The venture started with a loan against insurance and which was paid back within the first year. Ever since, the products are improving and finding a steady market.

The proprietor of enterprise Manaza Hyat was Junior Female Table Tennis Champion of Pakistan in 2000. She remained the KP Female Champion in 2001.

She joined Hazara University for a Master’s Degree in Physical Education and became Inter-University Champion in the process of acquiring a First Class M.Sc. Degree.

With this background in sports, she has the necessary fighting spirit to make a name for herself in a male-dominated society and has been striving to preserve our heritage and culture through modern, value added products like bags, fashion, and luggage accessories, incorporating traditional embroidery; coin and mirror-work embellishments.

She successfully manufactured personal protective apparel of parachute material for the lady doctors of Abbottabad before the glut on the market of cheap and substandard goods and is currently producing culture base masks with floral motifs embroidery and all-natural, environmental friendly and re-useable materials.

It also ensures quality of products as they take immense pride in their work and provide a friendly home atmosphere to their female staff.

Moreover, over 70 females from poor backgrounds have been trained in self-sufficiency and provided the skills to make bags and pouches in their homes for the market.

The National Vocational and Technical Training Commission has provided a three-month vocational training course for Kimmy’s Vocational Training Institute.

Manaza is well-known as a registered artisan with the Labour Ministry of KP and was given the best artisan award in November 2020 by President of Pakistan during the All Pakistan Lok Virsa held annually in Islamabad.

The Abbottabad Born and Bred Lady is proudly carrying on the skills handed down from generation to generation of Hazara women and is a source of inspiration for the females of our region in particular and nation at large.