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RIGHTS investigation

Women's empowerment

An entrepreneur opens up possibilities for others

ZjVM.Khairuzzaman
Here is a success story of a woman in Satkhira who broke away from the barrier of poverty and tradition and rapidly emerged as a successful entrepreneur by dint of will power and intelligence.
She achieved economic empowerment from within her home and her village by utilizing micro-credit judiciously. T don't want to look back. Let bygones be bygones. I am now a successful entrepreneur', says Munni Begum, proprietor of Ratna Nursery at Terulia village of Pirgajon under Kaliganj upazila in Satkhira.
She recalls how she braved the torments she endured when she broke away from tradition while
making tremendous change in society. Born of a poor day labourer’s family at Rarnjibonpur village under Numagar union in Shyamnagar upazila, Satkhira, Munni was the sixth of her five brothers and four sisters. She could read only up to Class-5 as poverty was her constant companion. She had to marry at the age of 13 as per will of her father Nur Mohammad Gazi. Husband Abu Musa is also a member of a poor family. He used to work at a rice mill as a labourer.
'Basically, I lagged behind in education and social awareness as I was an underprivileged woman, luckily, I came in contact with the facilitator of Dhaka
.Ahcania Mission (DAM) who enrolled me in its non-
formal education programme. Then I underwent a sixmonth course on reading, writing, counting and formed Mohila Unnyan Samity, a women's development association, in 1997. From then on luck favoured me', Munni recalls.
Initially, she took Tk 2,500 as micro-credit and purchased poultry birds and a calf to rear and earn a living. Alongside she was thinking of switching over to a permanent profitable trade. Observing my keen interest, the agriculture officer of DAM asked me to establish a nursery. I took training on development of nursery in phases at DAM and Forest Department Within next two years, I again took loan amounting to Tk 4,000 and 6,000 for operating a small trade through which I earned experience on small business management,' Munni said.
In the year 2000, she took small entrepreneur development loan amounting to Tk 10,000 and set up Ratna Nursery named after her daughter on one bigha land taking lease from the nearby Katunia High School. There she grew fruit-bearing and quality timber trees. She extended the nursery on two more bigha of land where she started growing saplings of flower plants as well as flowers. She got a reasonable good profit from her nursery and paid her loan amount on time. Her project has provided jobs to four full-time and four part-time workers. She earned a net profit of Tk 4, 80,000 in three years fetching laurels by participating in fairs regularly. Today, she is a successful entrepreneur. She learned business management and became aware about demerits of early marriage and other social issues. She felt an urgent need for female educa-
Munni is now a respectable woman in society. 'Economic prosperity brought me social recognition', she says. 'I play a role model because my enterprise is creative and environment-friendly. Its emulation will help alleviate poverty from society to a great extent. I thank Allah and DAM for leading me on,' she said.
On contact Dhaka Ahsania Mission president Kazi Rafiqul Alam said 'We very active in promoting gender equity at all levels of society and micro-credit is clearly a way to operationalise gender equity policies and to empower women. Micro-credit is about much more than access to money. It is about women gaining control over the means to make a livelihood. It is about women lifting themselves out of poverty and vulnerability. It is about women achieving economic and political empowerment within their homes, their villages, their countries. There is clearly an important role for micro-finance to play in the empowerment of women.
The writer is a working journalist of The Daily Star