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BAMBOO-MADE HANDICRAFTS

Perseverance makes Alam's venture successful

Mirza Shakil, Tangaii
If anybody has the will, confidence, perseverance and enterprise, he can make any hard task easier. Mohammad Shalt Alam, 38, of Borni Kishori village in Tangaii has proved it by exporting bamboo made handicrafts to different parts of the globe.
Shah Alam, along with his family members, workers and employees have been making these handicrafts at their houses at Borni Kishori and adjacent villages for the last two decades and have already exported to countries including America, Canada, Germany, Italy and France through different local organisations, such as Euro Bangla Ltd, Alfa Beta, Ubinig, Oasis and Brae’s Aarong.
The exported handicrafts include different types of tray, tablemat, floor lamp, lamp shed, modern basket, flower vas, jewellery box, showpiece, ladies bag, nest and household decorative items. These items are all made of bamboo, which is already popular abroad.
Shah Alam started making different bamboo products in his house about 25 years ago. Now about one hundred families of the village and adjacent villages are engaged with Shah Alam and his business. These villages have about 150 years of reputation for making innovative and eye catching bamboo products.
So far, Alam has made around 500 different bamboo products. Of these, at present he is producing 30 to 35 items on a regular basis as these products have huge demand abroad. Besides, he currently has orders for huge quantity of bamboo-made products in his hands.
His first product, about eight lakh pieces of bread baskets, has been exported to Germany through Euro Bangla Limited in Dhaka since 1987, when he was a student of class X of Borni High School. Shah Alam supplied 1,25,000 bread baskets a year and it was possible because he was given 50 percent of the production costs in advance.
He also exported about 15 lakh bamboo-made nests to America through Ask International in Dhaka nonstop for 14 years.
Besides, Shah Alam made different
products including different boxes, show piece, ladies bag, lamp shed and baskets and exported them to Italy and Canada.
Now Shah Alam is exporting his bamboo-made products to France through Brae’s Aarong. The project for making 12,500 special types of modern baskets is currently ongoing.
After meeting the local demand, Shah Alam exports his handicrafts
worth Tk 15 lakh-20 lakh every year. But he personally cannot make much profit from it as he uses the local commercial organisations as mediums to send his products abroad.
Shah Alam has received the best Karushilpi (artisan) award from the Jatiya Karushilpa Parishad in 2002. He went to India in 2002, 2004 and 2006 to see how the Indian government was acting’ as a patron of the arts
(karushilpa) and the artisans by supporting them with modern tools and machines.
Later, the Forest Research Institute sent him to China to study Chinese arts (karushilpa).
Alam said Chinese arts (karushilpa) are the best in the world. Most of the furniture in China are made of bamboo, which are modern with very beautiful artistic works.
“We, however, are forced to make our products manually as we have no modern tools or machines,” Shah Alam said.
"If we get necessary support from government and private organisations, we also can earn huge amount of foreign currency through exporting the item as bamboo clusters are readily available in our country," he said.