Tsolmon lives with her husband and two children. She studied financial management at Sanko University and started her family before graduating. She stayed at home for five years straight after giving birth to her daughter in 2012. In 2016, she gave birth to her son.
She tried selling dairy products to support her family. Her husband also tried selling smartphone accessories but these efforts were not enough to meet her family’s basic needs. Tsolmon tried her hands at multiple things – whatever could help her provide for her family. She tried working at a sewing workshop as a young mother. Since she did not have anyone else at home, she had to bring along her one-year-old son to her workplace. Unfortunately, soon after, her son met with a small accident due to which she had to stop working there. However, such life challenges did not deter her from working harder. She started sewing small clothes such as baby apron bibs from home. Her small sewing business was slowly progressing until COVID-19 hit.
The strict lockdown caused by the pandemic was an imminent danger to their household income. Fortunately for her, during the difficult times of the pandemic, she was introduced to World Vision Mongolia’s Young Families Livelihood Improvement programme.
From the programme, she learnt how to run a business properly and to save money for business and family. Her family received emergency food support during the COVID-19 lockdown, and she could use her income from her sewing business for ordering more material for the sewing business. She also received a special machine from the YFLI project that puts buttons on the clothes, which saved their working time from ten minutes to one minute per button.
Their family inculcated the habit of saving to buy one machine at a time to expand their business. Slowly but surely their family business started expanding. Today, she employs eight mothers, and her business income increased ten-fold. The family now plans to establish their own store where they can sell their products directly to end-users.