THE traditional sewing machine may seem an unlikely weapon The ones you find in Bangladesh are old fashioned mechanical gadgets - a solid black painted machine solidly placed on a polished wooden table, standing on four metal legs and operated by a foot pedal. A museum piece, a useful if outdated household object but a weapon? Surely not.

In rural northern Bangladesh, however the sewing machine is a weapon in the war against poverty and a different struggle for women’s rights. For poor women, the humble sewing

ing. To begin with, the trainees practise with brown paper since they cannot afford to dam age proper material until they are able They find out how to operate and lo look after their machine

At the start of their training, the women are provided with credit to buy their sewing ma chines They have to pay back the full amount, normally from their earnings as dressmakers within 6 months Their weapons are their own and they take great care with them when they finally leave and aet up business on their own

machine is a vital instrument in their fight for liberation. It means they can. often for the first time. begin to earn a modest livelihood.

In the last few years, the development programme of one non-governmental organisation Rangpur Dinajpur Rural Service (RDRS) has enabled many more poor women to join this war throughout northern Bangladesh. Visit any of their local centres and you find groups of between ten to fifteen young women enthusiastically learning this vital skill. Many are divorced or abandoned women who struggle daily to provide enough food for themselves and their children.

Training normally takes 15 weeks, six days a week and six hours a day. It is a hard and demanding course but the women's determination is so great, they seldom drop out. To teach them all the basic skills. RDRS engage a skilled local tailor — usually a man. Their course goes through al) the stages of clothes-maklng from measuring to cutting and stitch-

Tailoring is liberating in other ways. Local women, who are reluctant to visit male tailoring shops In town, can happily .visit a woman neighbour herself, get measured for a Item of clothing and make her own choice of clothes and fabrics rather than rely on a male family member to make the arrangements. The same local women also show more trust In their neighbours' rather than factory handiwork. They cAn also order clothes on credit, since neighbours can trust each other.

Although Bangladesh has a growing number of garment factories producing cheap clothes in large quantities, there is still a great demand for tailored clothes in rural areas. Even as they are training, the women wqrk on individual orders from their village neighbours to make children's clothes, school uniforms, women's saris, pillow cases and mosquito nets. Each completed order and each satisfied customer is another battle in their fight for self-reliance.

The writer is associated with RDRS.