Not every business starts with a single founder. In the North Central Province of Sri Lanka, some of the strongest ones started with several.

Rajarata Praja Kendraya (RPK) has worked across this region since 1995, running community programmes, from sustainable agriculture to microfinance. At the centre of its work with survivors of gender-based violence sits ‘Liya Savi Arana’, a shelter offering housing, food, medical care, counselling, and vocational support. Like several shelters in the region, this one offers only a transitional stay; survivors pass through, then move back into homes and communities that are often still economically fragile.

RPK supported fifteen such survivors, women in their late twenties to early forties from vulnerable rural and traditional communities through the Post-Shelter Economic Empowerment pilot project.This is a key initiative funded by the Government of Canada, ‘Ensuring Justice for Victim-Survivors of SGBV in Sri Lanka,’ project and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Sri Lanka, in collaboration with UNFPA Sri Lanka

Many already had a skill or an idea for self-employment. What they lacked was capital, confidence, and market access.

Fifteen paths, and one that stood out

As with other shelters in the region, RPK let survivors choose their own livelihoods. Tailoring was the early favourite, but by the end of the pilot, the businesses had spread into food production, catering, pottery, agriculture, fisheries, and poultry farming. Training from the Institute for Social Business covered the fundamentals, from planning and bookkeeping, to marketing, buyer relationships, alongside something less common in business courses: sessions on self-motivation and personal wellbeing.

By the end of the pilot, seven survivors had active individual businesses, and four had joined together in self-managed group ventures. Four businesses that had been knocked back hard by the impacts of Cyclone Ditwah, were rebuilding their work with RPK's support.

Of everyone in the programme, three businesses reported genuinely high economic progress. All three were part of the same kind of business: a self-managed group sewing enterprise, where orders were shared, work was divided, and no one carried the load alone.

What the group made possible

It's not a coincidence. Where individual businesses often struggled with irregular orders and thin customer bases, the group model let survivors pool their capacity, taking on more work than any one of them could manage alone, and covering for each other when one woman's order book ran dry.

Not every business found that same footing. Four survivors made moderate progress, held back by inconsistent orders and a lack of formal pricing or record-keeping. Another four saw little progress, their businesses spanning food production, pottery, and sewing struggling with irregular payment and low sustainability. Poultry and pottery ventures in particular were squeezed by high feed costs, technical gaps, and thin working capital. And for the businesses hit hardest by Cyclone Ditwah, like one survivor's mushroom cultivation, recovery is still underway.

Across nearly all of it, though, one thing held steady: RPK's follow-up support, including connections to local government and Divisional Secretariat officers for further training and financial assistance.

Building on what worked

The path forward looks different depending on where a business stands. The group sewing enterprises, already thriving, need stronger buyer networks, tighter quality control, and structured production planning to keep scaling. Businesses with moderate progress need help reaching new markets, formal registration, and better financial record-keeping. For those still trying to get their businesses off the ground,  their needs require more working capital, technical training, and a clear plan. And, for survivors still finding their footing, what matters most isn't a spreadsheet; it's steady encouragement and someone checking in.

Fifteen women, fifteen different starting points. But it was the three who chose not to go it alone whose businesses grew fastest, a reminder that some of the strongest livelihoods are the ones nobody has to carry by themselves.