Help Women To Be Self-Sufficient in Bangladesh

In January 2008 Yael Falicov, IDEX’s Director of Programs, visited Bangladesh and spent time at the Chandanaish field office of OWDEB. The day of the visit, 20 adolescent girls were in the office receiving training from a law student about their rights as women under the law. They were discussing birth registration (without a legal birth certificate, a woman cannot vote or enroll in school), marriage registration, domestic violence and property rights.

IDEX staff also met with a women's empowerment group consisting of 25 women who had been meeting weekly for one year. They had built a small savings fund and some of the women had applied for small loans for income-generating activities. They had received training from OWDEB on financial management and on the skills needed to run their small businesses. Some of the women are making embroidered fans for sale at the local market. Others are growing non-traditional crops such as roses and off-season vegetables.

One woman, Mitu Deb, received a loan to start a business making puffed rice, a Bengali staple. With the loan, she bought rice in bulk at 50 cents per kilo. She heats the rice on her clay stove and repackages it to sell at 70 cents per kilo. She now sells 50 kilos of rice per week, bringing in an income of $10. Her weekly loan payment is $2.85, leaving $7.15 profit. She will finish paying her loan this month, so that she will make a profit of $40 per month. Given that the typical wage of an urban factory worker in Bangladesh is $25 per month, Mitu is making a substantial income without having to leave her rural village.