In the village of Chandu near Gurugram, Pooja Sharma grew up in a world where a girl’s first lesson was limited. She was pulled out of school early because co-ed classrooms were considered improper. Marriage came young. Motherhood came early. And financial strain arrived before she had the chance to imagine anything different.

By 2005, raising three children, Pooja found herself in a life shaped entirely by others’ decisions. She became the first woman in her village to step outside her home for work—not out of rebellion, but necessity—taking a job as a primary school teacher. It was her first act of self-determination in a world that rarely offered women choices.

The turning point arrived in 2010 when she inherited an old haveli from her father-in-law. To most, it was an unused ancestral space. To Pooja, it was the first real room of her own—a place where permission would no longer dictate possibility.

Training at KVK Shikohpur in 2012 gave her something she had never been offered: a skill. Learning to turn soybeans into snacks awakened a belief she had never voiced. If she could transform her own life, why couldn’t she help other women transform theirs?

That question became her conflict—and her calling.

The Haveli That Became a Movement

What began as a small soybean processing unit in Pooja’s haveli in 2013 became the seed of a movement. She formed the Kshitiz Self-Help Group not as a business venture, but as a gathering of women who had spent their lives being told to stay invisible.

Inside those walls, Pooja began teaching women how to roast soy, process flour, bake biscuits and prepare snacks using methods she learned from agricultural institutes. The women arrived quietly at first, unsure of themselves. But as they learned and earned, the hesitancy melted. One by one, they began to return taller—in posture, in confidence, in the way they spoke their own names.

The work expanded beyond anything she had imagined.

Nine SHGs. Seven manufacturing units.

Over 150 women employed. More than 1,000 trained.

A village that once restricted women now relied on their income.

In 2017, Pooja founded JingEngest in Delhi, producing soy snacks and health drinks distributed through government-backed platforms like Saras Melas. Her products travelled across the state. Her story travelled even farther.

But the real proof of her work wasn’t in the units she built or the revenue she generated. It was in women like Rani, who joined the SHG unsure of her abilities and soon earned enough to send her children to school. It was in the way women now spoke up in meetings, opened savings accounts, made household decisions and imagined futures their mothers never dared to consider.

Pooja wasn’t just baking. She was rewiring what her village believed women were capable of.

Recognition followed. In 2022, she received the Nari Shakti Puraskar from President Ram Nath Kovind. But awards were never the measure of her success. The real measure was the sound of women entering her haveli every morning—not because they had to, but because they chose to.

The Village That Learned to Stand Taller

Over time, the impact of Pooja’s work spread far beyond economics. Women who once whispered now led community discussions. Girls who once expected early marriages now dreamed of education and enterprise. The Haryana State Rural Livelihood Mission supported many SHGs across the state, but Pooja’s model became a living example of how resources become transformation only when someone is willing to lead from the inside.

The haveli changed shape too. It became a place where women found dignity, where daughters found possibilities, and where a village found its future.

Pooja is now focused on expanding her brand through government-run online platforms, hoping to bring more women into the circle of opportunity. Her bakery continues to grow, but her vision has always been larger than business. She wants a Haryana where a woman’s first identity isn’t limitation, but capability.

Her journey resolves the conflict she began with:

the story of a girl denied education becoming the story of a woman who educated an entire community on what is possible.

THE CHALLENGER’S MANIFESTO

Pooja’s journey leaves behind a challenge that rural India can no longer ignore: if one woman with an abandoned haveli, a borrowed skill, and no permission but her own conviction can reshape the lives of hundreds, what might happen the moment every woman in every village is given the space to choose her own beginning?

Sources

• Pooja Sharma – Nari Shakti Puraskar Coverage

https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1808824

• Haryana State Rural Livelihood Mission – Public Documents

https://hsrlm.gov.in/

• JingEngest, Saras Mela & SHG Promotion Records

JingEngest (Brand Listing / Public Documentation):

https://www.saras-mela.com/

• KVK Shikohpur Training Documentation

https://gurugram.kvk4.in/

• Ram Nath Kovind (for referencing award ceremony context)

https://presidentofindia.nic.in/

(Official President of India website; archive for events & speeches)