A lonely woman without enough money or a husband or family or friends to support her, took her first steps outside her hometown “Beni Suef ” for the first time accompanied by her two young daughters 18 years ago to reach the train station in Cairo. This woman is Fardous, aged 66 who refused her family’s pressure to get married again after breaking up with her husband. She rebelled over her family’s desire and social pressure and traveled to settle down in Cairo after cutting off all ties with her past, including her family and her husband. Fardous arrived to Cairo with nothing except a small amount of money and the name of a family friend from her hometown, who managed to help Fardous to find a place to live in with her daughters.

Fardous started to search for a new source of income to feed her daughters through selling termes and then selling tea in the street. After a short period of time, she learnt about the group loan product at Al Tadamun Microfinance Foundation and applied for her first loan in 2008. She used the loan to start her project of baking bread daily in her home. She successed to make one of her daughters complete her education and to help the two to get married.

She wakes up every day at sunrise to start baking bread and finishes by mid-day. Her daily production is 200 loaves of bread, which are sold to nearby hotels and restaurants. Fardous dreams that her project becomes bigger by buying more equipment to make the baking process easier.