How Ashish Found Hope During The Pandemic

Ashish Kumar, 34, is a resident of a village in Satkhira Sadar upazila. Ashish lives with his mother Jatanrani Sarkar and his two older siblings. Ashish’s father passed away in 2017. After his father’s death, Ashish took some bank loans to start a small business in a market near his home. But in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, Ashish was forced to shut down his business and faced enormous losses. When he started getting calls from the bank to pay off his loans, Ashish fell into a deep depression and withdrew from everyone. Eventually, things got bad enough that Ashish tried to take his life but was saved by his brother.

The community facilitator of the Youth Empowered Project found out about the incident and visited Ashish and his family. She spoke to Ashish and advised him to seek psychosocial counselling. She took Ashish to an informal counselor in July 2022 and gradually he began to form a new lease on life. He built back his confidence and took a loan from a relative to restart his business in October 2022, eventually paying back his loans. Ashish now dreams of growing his business further and starting his own family.