Three months ago, Kinare was an idea my cousin and I carried between conversations.

We had a vision, a name, and a long list of things we didn’t yet know how to do. We knew the kind of organization we wanted to build, but we had no idea what it would look like once it left the pages of our notebooks and entered the lives of real women.

Today, there are women holding products they made themselves, receiving their first orders, learning how to manage the income they earn, and building relationships with other women who are on a similar journey.

“Khud hi toh hai hum kinare.” “We ourselves are the shore.”

I must have listened to that lyric hundreds of times during college.

It comes from the song Kinare from Queen, my favorite Bollywood film about discovering that sometimes the strength you've been searching for has been within you all along. Whenever I felt overwhelmed, lonely, or needed courage, I would play the song on repeat. It reminded me that I could become my own anchor.