It is said that, when you have the passion, then take the action and magic will happen. Well, this is a very true saying. A woman with the same attitude, followed her passion and today she is running a successful business.

Maninderjeet Kaur – a usual woman who always was fascinated with the creative handwork from her childhood, and later on, in her teenage, stitching and embroidery became her hobby. As her passion for creativity and her hobby grew more steadily, it made her feel like she should learn this skill professionally, and this ultimately led her to pursue Diploma in Stitching after her education (10th passed).

After marriage, generally, women think about spending a good time with their better half, getting settled with their family responsibilities and spending time with their kids. But this was not the case with Maninderjeet Kaur. It is not that, she hasn’t fulfilled her responsibilities, but at the same time, she also gave equal importance to her interest also. Currently, she is living happily with her family in Zirakpur and also running her business.

Twenty years ago Maninderjeet Kaur started Maninder Silayi Center and later on gave a label name to her business called Kohinoor, which today has prospered to a very successful business cum workshop. And to reach every big thing you have to start from small. Maninderjeet Kaur started by teaching stitching and embroidery to few girls at her home. Soon, she got recognized in the locality and many women and girls started visiting her for tailoring lessons. Finally, her degree came to work, she rented an area where she started giving tailoring lessons. She taught her students to stitch designer suits, bed sheets, pillow covers, kitchen cloth bag, grocery shopping bag, mats and many more things. Today there are total 60 girls under her, some of them are trainers and the rest are students who are still learning.

In her stitching centre, she has 15 stitching machines from which she teaches around 10 courses- stitching, fashion stitching, quilt making, bed sheet making, painting, embroidery (machine/handmade both), cooking, and different types of bag stitching. Her tailoring centre and classes are so popular that even educated women who are working as a doctor, engineer, and nurse take out time from their busy schedule to learn from her. Usually, she charges Rs. 500 for stitching course and 600 to 1000 for painting course to normal students. But sometimes she doesn’t charge to girls and women who are from a weak financial background and don’t have enough money to pay for the course. Moreover, she provides stitching material from her side to them, so that they can learn the skill and earn for themselves.

In the beginning, when she started her business, her quality work bring her a good customer (a shop in Chandigarh called VIVCO) and she partnered with them. She purchases clothes in bulk from VIVCO, wash them, make different items from it like bed sheets, pillow covers, bags, suits in her workshop and send all those products to VIVCO so that they can further sell it in the market. This whole process was generating good profit to her business. But around three years ago, in 2014, VIVCO closed their business, and it impacted Maninderjeet Kaur’s business severely. Till then she is facing hindrances in running her business smoothly because she doesn’t have a proper commercial platform to sell her workshop produce in the market. Despite all these hardships she never felt demotivated, and even today is she gets any opportunity or chance, she actively participate in it and gives her 100%.

Today Maninderjeet Kaur is in her mid-60s, but her inner passion has not diminished yet. She still teaches her student with full of energy and enthusiasm. According to her, she is still growing and learning which is helping her to add more products to expand her business. She attends every type of exhibition or event to make her brand more popular and gain the ideal audience.

Maninderjeet Kaur has been stitching clothes and doing embroidery since her teenage but never had she thought that this would someday turn into a full-fledged business for her. She is tailoring her way to success and the identity she has earned today is because of her zeal to continue her interest. For now, she is focusing on improving her revenues to maximize the profit and also to take her business on greater heights.

Message by Maninderjeet Kaur
“A woman should never suppress her skills and interest because of other reasons. Because those skills and interest can help her earn livelihood tomorrow in difficult times. Moreover knowing an additional skill is never a disadvantage, sometime in future that skill will definitely come to work. And whenever you get the opportunity, never miss it and always take advantage of it.”