Tahmina is starting 2024 with a hard-earned title: businesswoman. Her journey to entrepreneurship was filled with starts, stops, lessons, and achievements. These days, Tahmina can support her family through her business, and she is meeting a community need. It is a far cry from where she found herself in the mid-2010s with a college degree and scant employment prospects.

Growing up in the Gorno-Badakhshan region of Tajikistan, education was always important to Tahmina. Tajikistan has high literacy and high school graduation rates, and most young people strive to complete their higher education. However, the region is economically depressed, and finding employment is challenging. This translates not only to difficulty meeting daily expenses but also to the fear of not being able to provide further education for the next generation. These are among the chief reasons that Central Asia Institute focuses on providing scholarships, supporting school infrastructure, and entrepreneurship training in the region.

Tahmina was introduced to Central Asia Institute in 2019 at their inaugural Financial Literacy Training. During this program, she gained new skills and tools for managing her finances and began crafting a vision for a small business. Encouraged to start with her existing skills and interests, Tahmina began selling traditional sour bread to friends and family. This humble beginning gave Tahmina important knowledge about procurement, costing, supply, demand, and timing. In further trainings with CAI, Tahmina made important connections between her initial real-world business experience and the more advanced training topics.