Mats manufactured by financially vulnerable women of Rangpur-Dinajpur region are making room in the market across the country.
Mat promotional activities, an initiative of Rangpur-Dinajpur Rural Service Bangladesh, an NGO, have so far changed the fortune of thousands of financially vulnerable women in the region.
The product manufactured by the poor women of the country’s poverty-stricken areas is now being supplied across the country. The initiative has so far created job opportunities for thousands of women.
About 4,000 women of greater Rangpur and Dinajpur districts are now engaged in manufacturing mats. Gradually, these women are becoming self-reliant providing additional support to their families.
RDRS, Bangladesh began mat promotional activities in the worst poverty-stricken areas of the Rangpur and Dinajpur districts. The women of the areas were provided training by the organisation along with supplying raw materials free of cost to prepare mats in their houses. The NGO also took the responsibility of marketing the product.
Nayon Moni, craft manager of the organisation, said that most of the poor women in the region are not directly involved in any income-generating activities in the lean period. Women in the monga-affected areas pass weeks even months with little work in the lean period when the male members go to other areas looking for job.
He also said that the organisation began mat production and promotional activities by financially-vulnerable women at village level of the districts in 2005. It provided women 60-day practical training on mat production. Nearly 4,000 women have so far received training.
The official said that her organisation also buys the finished product from them at the rate of Tk 10 per square foot. Later, RDRS sells the product across the country at 20-25 per cent higher price to maintain staff and other costs.
Manjushri Shah, women rights coordinator, RDRS, said that mat production, as an income generating activity, is very useful for women, as they can do it at home without compromising other household activities like cooking, cleaning and looking after kids and elders.
A woman can manufacture 10 to 15 square feet mat in a day that can earn her about Tk 100 to 150, she added.
Hajera Begum, a 39-year-old woman of Gojoghanta village under Gongachara upazila in Rangpur, said that she along with her husband and three children used to starve or remain half-fed during Bengali months of Aswhin and Kartik, as there was no farm work.
Having been engaged in mat production after receiving training she is now able to make additional money along with household works, she said adding that her family is now much better-off.
Zakir Hossain . Rangpur
