Working women of Bangladesh
Meet three ladies of Dhaka who are busy building their careers thanks to UK aid support for education
Sharna
It’s a hot and dusty spring afternoon in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Children eat mini mango ice cream cones in a side street filled with passing rickshaws, carts and motorcycles.
Eighteen-year-old Sharna rolls up the shutters of a small frontage in the bustling neighbourhood. Within minutes, a woman and her daughter appear wanting to place an order for a shalwar kameez in vivid cerise cotton.
Welcome to Sharna’s tailoring shop. Here she sells rolls of fabric and manufactures all kinds of garments and soft furnishings for her local community. Like many 18 year olds, she has an eye for fashion and enjoys bringing new trends into her work.
Sharna is proud of having her own business and works hard — sometimes into the middle of the night — to meet demand. Her mother helps by serving customers while Sharna works with precision and a determined eye at the single sewing machine stationed in the shop.
According to the Asian Development Bank, 31.5 per cent of Bangladesh’s population live below the poverty line — around 50 million people. The country’s garment sector forms a major part of the economy, providing jobs and viable livelihoods.
Sharna is one of 5 brothers and sisters. She lives with her parents in a suburb of Dhaka. She learned to sew at UCEP, the Underprivileged Children’s Educational Programme, a vocational skills training and education project proudly funded by UK aid.
UCEP gives children from very poor backgrounds technical skills training alongside general education followed by employment support. These practical skills increase their employability in Bangladesh’s growing economy. Every year, UCEP graduates in their thousands find jobs across Bangladesh thanks to their training.
Sharna’s family were able to combine some limited savings for her to set up the business and put her skills to use.
Sharna projects confidence in her new independence and though these are early days, she has big plans for the future. “Now I have my own business, I earn monthly 25000 taka (about £220),” she says.
“In the future, I wish to extend my business where more people will work and I will make more profit.”
“To maintain the business properly, satisfy customers and run the daily tasks sometimes create pressure but I am trying to manage everything,” she says.
“I am also now learning the works of beauty parlour and soon I will open a parlour besides my tailoring shop. So, my parents are very positive about my future.”
Shirina
It may be 35 degrees in Dhaka, but Shirina is the picture of cool. This thirty year old, busy working mum is a trailblazer of many kinds. As a woman in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths), she is a progressive role model to girls globally.
She is helping children from very poor backgrounds to build a better future through vocational skills, as an instructor at the UCEP school.
UCEP supports thousands of children every year to gain highly sought after skills for Bangladesh’s growing economy.
Shirina teaches hands on training in refrigeration and air conditioning systems. Each of her classes has a mixture of about 30 girls and boys.
“I love my job very much,” she says. “Providing skills training to underprivileged children, helping them to build their employability and change their socio-economic status makes me happy and proud.
“I always inspire the girl trainees saying that if I can establish myself in the non traditional sector then they can also do better in this sector and empower themselves.”
For many girls growing up in Bangladesh, child, early and forced marriage are commonplace. This means many millions of girls lose out on an education. Shirina’s family made a different choice.
“In Bangladesh society, families often want their daughters to marry at an early age and for village girls, this is very usual,” she says. “My family never created obstacles for me to continue my education even in non-traditional areas for females.
“I feel proud and happy of the job I am doing at UCEP for those who are socially discriminated.”
Halima
Twenty-seven-year-old Halima is a woman with big plans. From humble beginnings, she finished an electronics course at UCEP.
Fast forward 15 years: she now works in a private firm in the electronics sector as a quality controller.
The UCEP training had a big impact on Halima — not only her skills — but on her whole outlook.
“After my training at UCEP, I got a job straight away. I felt that if I could get this type of job with this training, what else could I do?”
So she decided to enrol for a 4 year diploma in electrical engineering.
“After the diploma, I saw I could get another type of job, so why not enrol for a full BSc in engineering, so that I can get an even better job?”
And so it continued. Now Halima is a proud BSc student due to graduate in 2016. “My dream is to complete a master’s degree in electronics in Australia.”
Halima is the youngest of 6 siblings. She has 3 older sisters who were all married at a young age. Like many girls from poor families in Bangladesh she used to do handicrafts as a child to help boost the family income.
Much of this intricate work — known as karchupi — is labour intensive and attracts very low pay, an estimated 240 taka (about £2.12) per 20 hours of work.
“If I didn’t get the chance to enter UCEP, I would have missed the chance of education. We were 6 brothers and sisters and actually our father did not have a big income so we had a very struggling situation,” she says.
“Our biggest brother who had BA honours from a university took responsibility for the family.
“One day our brother’s friend informed him that I could be admitted into UCEP for 30 taka per year.
“So I visited UCEP and saw the electronics classes, heard about the job opportunities and decided that it was a good idea. I took the examination and came second out of the girls.”
Now Halima is married and lives with her husband in Savar near Dhaka.
Not content with her ambition in her studies, she is thinking about starting a new business in dress making, handicrafts and importing dresses from India.
“One day I’d like to start my own shop,” she says. We can’t wait to see what she’ll do next.
About UCEP
>The UK supports the UCEP programme in Bangladesh alongside other international donors including the Save the Children, Citi Bank NA, Australian High Commission, GIZ, many other local corporations, the private sector and the Government of Bangladesh.
>DFID has provided a £20 million programme over 4 years.
>The programme’s purpose is to provide urban, poor, working children and youth — especially girls and women — with basic education, vocational skills training and the chance to gain employment in market led technical areas.
Pictures: Marisol Grandon / DFID, Ricci Coughlan / DFID
Interviews: Marisol Grandon / DFID
