By Pallavi Rathod, All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI), India

For the past 25 years, Jashiben Motibhai Suthar has been selling cricket bats from a small roadside stall. The business is her family’s only source of income. She waits for customers to come in every day, but that gets a lot harder in summer.

By the afternoon, as the temperature rises, the roads become empty. Not many customers come to buy cricket bats, and people prefer to stay indoors. It’s exhausting sitting out in the heat for hours. “It was becoming difficult to sit during the day in the heat,” Jashiben often told people. Even after sitting at her stall all day, her sales kept falling. Many customers have also started buying products online, making business even more difficult.

The heat affects not only her work but also her home. She lives in a kachcha house without electricity. There is no fan to provide relief from the heat, and sleeping at night is difficult. Without proper rest, she wakes up tired and has less energy to manage her business the next day.

She realised that while afternoons were too hot, more people came out in the evening when the weather became cooler. She wanted to keep her business open during those hours, but she had no lighting facility after sunset.

Through AIDMI’s support, she received a battery and a cool box. This small support brought a big change to her life.

“Now that there is light in the evening, I can continue with my business.”

The battery powers a light that makes her stall visible after sunset, allowing her to serve customers during the cooler evening hours. She also started selling cold drinking water from the cool box. This has become an additional source of income, especially during hot days when people need safe drinking water.

The battery has another important benefit. Since her house has no electricity, it provides light at night for her family as well.

“The battery helps both my house and my business.”

At AIDMI workshops on Heat Action Planning for All, Jashiben shared her experience with other small business owners. She told them that it doesn’t always have to cost a lot to adapt to extreme heat. Small, practical actions can help protect health and livelihoods in conjunction with the knowledge gained through Heat Action Planning for All.