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The Ayesha Abed Foundation

A Model for Women's Development

by Nawshad Ahmed
WHEN thousands of women representatives from around the world were busy discussing women's rights in Beijing in the Women s NGO Forum meeting and the World Women's Conference, thousands of poor women worked quietly in Manikganj. 60-km" north of Dhaka, at the Ayesha Abed Foundation, an enterprise of BRAC. The Foundation was named in memory of late Ms Ayesha Abed, wife of Mr Fazle Hasan Abed. Executive Director of BRAC.
The two stated objectives of the Ayesha Abed Foundation (AAF) are. to alleviate poverty of rural women and to sustain commercial viability of the activities undertaken by it. Ms Abed initiated the enterprise in 1976 in Manikganj. with these twin objectives in mind.
The AAF has since grown into a large undertaking with four centres functioning in Manikganj. Jamalpur. Jessore and Snerpur. Each of these centres have central production units as well as association-based sub-centres built around these centers. A total of over ten thousand poor women are engaged in economic activities in these centres. in handloom, dying, printing, and embroidery of punjabl, sari, bed spread, table cloth. Cushion cover, wall mat. ladies dress and gentsrshirt. The bulk of the Brodupts are sold through RAC's sales outlet "Aarong" while a limited'quantity are also available for sale through the centres.
To meet Its objective of benefitting the poor, AAF selects landless and extremely poor women, helps them with membership in associations. provides them with skills training, gets them into contributory savings schemes, provides functional education on numeracy and literacy, provides employment in the centres, subcentres or tn their homes, and allows access to non-collat-
women in, the sub-centres. A saree takes about a week to be completed by a group of ten women.
AAF uses cotton, pure silk and end! (second-grade silk) clothes in making punJabi. shirt, women's dress, and saree. Fabric is supplied by BRAC's own handloom factories. A limited quantity of saree is made at the centres' own handloom units. A part of high quality fabric is also imported.
AAF has its own pool of designers who continue to develop new designs for punJabi. fatwa, shirt, and saree. The same design is used usually on not more than 250 punjabis, 150 shirts and 50 sarees. However, an attractive design is used on a maximum of 500 Punjabis and 300 shirts.
Strict quality control is practiced at all levels of production process. Fabric is selected with care, and best quality dying and stitching materials are used. Although most of the products are targeted for local markets, an increasing quantity of products are now being aimed for sale through two Aarong sales centres, at London and Montreal. Improved product design has ensured steady growth of demand for the products.
AAF is run by active support of both BRAC-employed staff and elected representatives of women workers. The centres are headed by Administrators who report to the AAF Advisor. The Administrators control the Foundation operation through the Centre Managers. Under Centre Managers, there are Programme Organizers. Operation Section Chiefs. Accountants. Store in Charge, and other technical staff. Each sub-centre is supervised by a representative of Sromojibi Mohila Sakti (Laboring Women's Strength) — a working women's association. Each centre has a Management Committee. Decisions on production, budget-
eral loans, up to a maximum of Tk 5,000 per person. Surplus generated from the Foundation's production activities are used to expand its programme and provide new loans to association members.
The potential women workers are initially trained 2r AAF In its workshops for x months in one of the specific areas; weaving, embroidery block-printing or sericulture. The training concentrates on design, prototype development, cloth and thread dying, block and screen printing, yarn making and reqling, weaving, tailoring and kantha stitching. After the training, the women are paid both on a piece basis and also on a monthly basis, depending on the type of work as well as whether one is employed at the centre, sub-centre or at home.
The Foundation centres have several units. These are dying, washing, block printing. weaving, tailoring, em-brofdery and kantha stitching units. The Individual units are housed In separate rooms. The units are headed by professionally trained and experienced women supervisors called operation section chiefs. The section chiefs en-sure both quality and quantity of products and work in the same rooms along with their fellow workers to enable them to supervise closely. There are several male cutting masters and designers in . the .centrea also. The tailoring section looks like a mod ern garment factory where about one hundred women work in a large room. The Foundation uses vegetable dye on a limited scale as It is three times aa expensive as chemical dye.
AAF arranges supply of fabric and other raw materials for use by the workers to ensOre a consistently high standard of products and takes the responsibility of marketing all the products. The home-based producers are given work suitable for them, usually embroidery and stitching of punJabi. Embroidered quilt (Nakshi Kantha) and thread work on saree are done in groupa of ten or so
ing. procurement and processing are taken jointly by the Management Committee and Foundation staff.
The Management Committee is comprised of elected representatives from the centre as well as from subcentres. The Management Committee keeps Jn mind two broad goals of the Foundation while making decisions. which are. employment creation for rural poor women and financial viability of the activities. While these two goals appear to be somewhat, in conflict, these are balanced at the Foundation in a very efficient way. A substantial proportion of surplus generated at the Foundation is channeled to the poor women association members as credit for income generation activities. The members repay the loan to the Foundation in equal weekly installments. over a five-to-ten year time period
The production capacity of AAF has been Increasing at a remarkable rate. The annual sales has grown at a rate of about 20 per cent. Total sales have gone up from Tk 2.2 million in 1985 to 7.0 million In 1994. The Foundation is expected to open three new centres, at Narsingdi, Pabha and Faridpur in the next two years. Total employment opportunity is expected to reach 20.000 by the year 2000.
Those who are employed with the Foundation for sev eral years are believed to have achieved higher living standards. However, most of these women are still struggling to get their families above the poverty level. Most of the women nave larger families, some abandoned by their husbands, and lack knowledge of modern contraceptive methods and are not health conscious. AAF has plans to cover these women under family planning and health programmes, arrange literacy programmes for family members, and open day care centres for their children. tn future. The Ayesha Abed Foundation could become a model for comprehensive development of poor families in rural Bangladesh.