GlobalGiving: Help Women To Be Self-Sufficient in Bangladesh

June 2008 Update

Katherine Zavala — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:30:34 GMT

In the last year, OWDEB organized several training workshops to improve leadership development and gender equality among women.

The following trainings were conducted:
   5 training workshops on gender relations to 101 participants
   4 training workshops on “Women Rights and Our Law” and The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) to 90 participants
   1 training on Human Rights/Leadership development for 22 group leaders

The main challenge for conducting these workshops has been the opposition of fundamentalists and religious leaders who believe that these activities go against Islam.

In order to address this negative perspective and attitude against women, OWDEB has organized meetings with the Chairman of the Union Parishad, an elected local government body. These bodies are for the management of local affairs by locally elected persons. In addition, OWDEB met with community members, community elite and leaders to explain the programs and activities of OWDEB, its expected output and its positive impact on the whole community.

March 2008 Update

Katherine Zavala — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:09:13 GMT

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.

December 2007 Update

Katherine Zavala — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 23:34:44 GMT

This year, 30 women participated in OWDEB’s training on business skills. These workshops shared information on the process from creating a product to marketing the product. OWDEB also coordinated these workshops to include basic accounting skills for women to learn how to manage a budget and determine their product’s price and calculate a profit.

One of the main challenges OWDEB has encountered with these workshops is that many women have never received formal education so they don’t even know how to count or sum things. OWDEB is adding basic calculation courses to ensure that all of the women participants have the same opportunity to lead a successful income-generating project. OWDEB has already started to organize financial literacy classes for these women’s daughters and other young girls in the community to start building these skills for when the time comes when they want to start their own income-generating project.

OWDEB has provided these 30 women with microcredits summing up to a total of $1,715 so that they can put into practice what they have learned and invest their money in an income-generating projects. As a result, women have initiated their own project in the following projects:
   Bamboo cane-made products
   Net-making
   Vegetable cultivation
   Livestock rearing including: goat, cow or chicken-raising
   Tailoring
   Carpentry,
   Small trade shop, etc.

October 2007 Update

Katherine Zavala — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 20:43:24 GMT

Training for women self-awareness/ leadership/ gender

OWDEB have recently facilitated five workshops where over 100 women learned about gender, discrimination in both family and work environments, and the role of leadership. As a result, they are now more aware of their rights and are being proactive in protecting them as much as possible.

The challenge OWDEB sees is that male family members are against women learning about their rights. They do not like women to raise their voice about their rights. Not in the family, nor in society. For this reason, they sometimes oppose OWDEB activities. As a result OWDEB is trying to implement training for male family members, and to support OWDEB employees in talking openly with men about their concerns and ultimately gain their support for their programs and most importantly women’s rights.

July 2007 Update

Katherine Zavala — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 18:25:56 GMT

25 women received training in income-generating activities, which included business skills to manage a small business from production to marketing. This education increases the women’s capacity to control their own profits. After the training session, the 25 participants have the skills to manage their own income-generating project such as raising goats and cows, embroidery, vegetable cultivation and bamboo cane-made products.