Archives: Our Team

Shayesta has started her home bakery in Guwahati, called “Food Passionista”. Food Passionista offers few desserts, cakes and savouries, for which they take immediate orders. Her products are absolutely homemade. She take the utmost care towards maintaining hygiene and quality of products. Since the business started during the peak of the lockdown when bakeries and shops were closed, she received good response initially. However, with the economy opening up, she now has to compete with bigger brands and this has hit her revenue.

Her venture is at a very nascent stage, and all operations are done by her alone. Now, she is determined to stay back and grow this venture started by her. Apart from this venture, she is also Director at Exclusive Advertising Private Limited, an advertisement agency set up by her family.

Shayesta  is from Cohort 2.0 of Project Her&Now.

For more details:

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/thefoodpassionista/

At  63 and with 35 years of experience as an entrepreneur, Shaswati is the co-founder of Mouchaak LLP. Mouchaak LLP is engaged in beekeeping and other allied products. Along with honey, they intend to diversify into bees-wax and other byproducts. Mouchaak also has a non- profit arm Dimoria Gramin Bikash Samitee through which they support the marginalised beekeepers. The idea of Moushak was conceived with the sole objective of providing the requisite exposure to the local honey produced in Assam to the rest of India. They are trying to promote honey as a healthy lifestyle product of everyday use rather than a commodity used for specific purposes. The enterprise has undertaken bottling and test marketing under the brand Moushak and received very good responses/feedbacks, which has motivated them to start the processing unit on a larger scale to meet the demands. And along with honey, they intend to diversify into bees-wax and other byproducts which too have a potential market across the country. Mouchaak also has a non- profit arm in the name of Dimoria Gramin Bikash Samitee through which they support the marginalised beekeepers and also motivate more people in the villages to take beekeeping as a sustainable employment avenue.

Even before becoming an entrepreneur, Shaswati was giving English tutorials to kids. Prior to this venture, she had a bags/suitcase outlet. She keeps shuttling between Kolkata and Guwahati. Her latest product is honey, and she wants to promote it via online channels. She is very strong headed and does not like beating around the bush. Her enterprise was one of the winners of NERES 1.0

Shaswatiis from Cohort 2.0 of Project Her&Now.

For more details:

Facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/Moushakhoney

Instagram page : https://www.instagram.com/moushakhoney/?hl=en

Shalu Tamang, a teacher by profession, is working on the idea of providing digital literacy to women esp., housewives. Based in Gangtok, Sikkim, took a break in career due to child care and takes up small social media projects from time to time. However, she realise that women esp., housewives becomes helpless or dependent on others when it comes to online operation. She wanted to work her ways in helping them.

Shalu is from Cohort 2.0 of Project Her&Now.

Sarah is working on an idea to start a café named as “JoSaKe”. She plans to set it up in her family property which is located at a dam site in Churachandpur, Manipur. Owing to the beautiful and picturesque surroundings she intends to serve it as a gateway space for the customers. It currently serves as a camping ground and her intention is to serve the campers with café.  She believes that it will boost the operations and the campers and outsiders will complement the cage. Her USP will be in using quality ingredients that are farmed on the land where JoSaKe is located, from farm to table concept  apartits international influence. They aim to meet customers’ needs by introducing classic food items and also new food items not offered anywhere else in Manipur that are not bound by season but will be made available throughout the year.

She is looking at impact in terms of fair wage, employment creation and has step-by-step approach to scaling her business. She is engaged in her business school and making use of her leanings and using them practically. Currently JoSaKe is engaged in trying out different menus for the cafe, and also has a menu that will stick to the target customer’s choice and price range.

Sarah is from Cohort 2.0 of Project Her&Now.

For more details:

Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/josake_donuts/

Ringeleiwon started her venture in 2014 with the selling of garment and footwear. Later, she transitioned to another business by opening a restaurant in 2018. Since 2018, she has been running the restaurant under the name “Lifestyle Coffee House” in Senapati, Manipur. She infuses local ingredients in her products and menu. Rice cake is one of the items on demand.

Ringleiwon is from Cohort 2.0 of Project Her&Now.

Rinchui Rephungis the proprietor of Avi’s cake enterprise Ukhrul, Manipur. Her mother is a very versatile woman and a passionate baker so she became very passionate about cooking and baking at an early age as well. However, she never thought of taking up a career in baking business. It happened only after she got married. The journey of Avi’s cake started in 2010. Her younger sister who shared the same passion and vision joined her and has been working wholeheartedly till date.

Avi’s cake specializes in making birthday and wedding cakes and have customers from in and around Manipur. Her enterprise also provides special classes or training to enthusiasts especially women folks from time to time. Their products include cakes, pastries, cookies, fruit tarts, brownies, bread, buns and doughnuts. She focuses on producing good quality baked foods and also incorporates seasonal fruits like plum, Nectarine, mango, pineapple, banana, avocado etc.to makes the products more fresh, nutritious and tasty.

Rinchui is from Cohort 2.0 of Project Her&Now.

Rebica is a trained nurse and a businesswoman and is looking to start her own business in organic farming. Her idea is to promote organic products for healthy living. She started working in the organic farming space for 7 months. She wants to enter mainstream organic food processes and lacks knowledge about it. Her concept of working in organic farming is to give sustainably sourced natural food.

Being a daughter of a farmer, she knows the concern of small scale farmers. Through this organic farming initiative of hers, she will be able to provide employment and ensure the farmers who are not dependent on chemical fertilizers will have a proper market for their valuable products. She plans on starting with vegetables.

Rebica is from Cohort 2.0 of Project Her&Now.

Puja Surana is the founder of “The Magic Bridge” which complements the academics .It is a life skill development program for children ages 2-6 years. A gadget free program with engaging and interactive worksheets, Art work stories and rhymes, games and activities. The program is designed to help in the development of reasoning ability, problem solving, memory concentration, confidence, smartness, better understanding ability and many more skills.

Puja has been working on this life-skills kit/module for 2-6 year olds and has put in a lot of work. The modules help the kids in becoming independent, decision makers, set goals, etc. She has been doing this since 2016.

Puja is from Cohort 2.0 of Project Her&Now.

Product Catalogue – The Magic Bridge

For more details:

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Magic-Bridge-301340457218048

Ishita Das is Founder & Director, The Silk Concept & Indie Silk Project Private Limited. Born and brought up in a family of silk weavers, her mission is to help the weavers of Assam to sustain their life in the future so that the next generations takes pride in the art of handloom. She wishes to make handloom products more effective for the global market.

A graduate from LasalleCollege of the Arts, Singapore, Ishita completed her Bachelor of Arts in Fashion Media & Industries (majoring in Industries), Certificate course in Visual Arts and a year in fashion designing. With an education in fashion industry and passion for social work since childhood, she has well established knowledge on how to make products that will understand the consumer’s need and also revive, preserve and promote Assam silk weaving with a rightful mind for making it an enterprise with a social cause successfully.She is the winner of NERES 1.0 and was awarded Exceptional Woman of Excellence by Women Economic Forum. The achievements are exceptional, given her short career as an entrepreneur.

Ishita is from Cohort 2.0 of Project Her&Now.

For more details:

Website: https://www.thesilkconcept.com/

Instagrampage: https://www.instagram.com/thesilkconcept/?hl=en

Priya is the founder of “Young Dexter” which provides a platform to school students to learn from practical exposure and ensure that they discover their passion at a young age. She started this enterprise out of personal experience.  It essentially guides students to find out what’s best for themselves and not someone else’s idea of what is best for them.

She conducts workshops for students- online & offline.  She is highly passionate and driven. It started in 2019 but has connected with a few schools and educational institutes. Till date they haven’t worked on a revenue generating model yet.

Priya is from Cohort 2.0 of Project Her&Now.