Making way with kantha stitching Piara finds a lifebuoy to survive

Jamalpur Correspondent :
Stranded in the middle of nowhere, most of the days Piara Begum and her family passed starving. Her father was a retired Health Assistant who, after his retirement in 1997, lost all his land property as a dire consequence of legal battle with their relatives. Accordingly, their family plunged into acute poverty. During those days, they could not even afford two square meals a day and sometimes, they had to quench their hunger by taking boiled green-banana.
Tragedy befell her even before she could sail on life’s journey. Piara got married at the age of 15 in a solvent family next to their village. Unfortunately her husband, Kamal Mia, was not a man of good moral character. Eventually he lost all his property being indulged in wrong doings with some of his bad companions. Consequently, she had to come back to her parents along with her two children after three years of marriage.
Social Development Foundation (SDF) started working in Purbo Kutamoni village in 2007. As a member of hardcore poor family, Piara was included as an unemployed youth to the development activities initiated by SDF and became a youth member of Gram Samity. In the same year, she was granted a skill development loan of BDT 2,500 from the Gram Samity and obtained a three-month long formal training on stitching and embroidery from a training institute arranged by SDF. On completion of training, she started working with the institute for sometimes and gained practical experience. Later on, she decided to work independently.
In order to start her own business, she borrowed BDT 4,000 in 2009 from the Gram Samity and purchased raw materials for stitching. She made few dresses for male and female by herself and sold with a profit of BDT 800. This inspired her and she continued this small scale tailoring for couple of months. Alongside making good profit Piara’s reputation started spreading in the locality as a good tailor. She started getting orders from readymade garments in Jamalpur district. In order to meet garment’s demand, Piara formed a working group with her fellow members of “New Life (Nuton Jibon)”. Nowadays, there are 35 to 40 members in her group who collectively produce garments and fine stitched Nokshi Kantha(a kind of blanket with very impressive hand stitched design) as per the orders from various buyers. Eventually her financial condition went through a change. She started making good profit by selling the finished products accordingly.
At present, she earns BDT 10,000 a month on average. Her achievement has allowed her to strike out with a better class of women. She has gained respect from the village people as well as from her family members. She has now the decision making power in her family. She also takes decision about what kind of business she will do for further benefits and plans for the better future of her children. Her economical adequacy enabled her to control over her own life and exert influence in society. Now the village people come to her for advice and they call her in their important meetings and ask for her suggestion. She is also enjoying her increased mobility within and outside the locality through SDF’s rigorous training that helped raising awareness and ultimately builds confidence.  
Piara is thinking of expanding her periphery of business and dreams to engage more unemployed girls and distressed women in her business so that they become resources to their respective families. She also dreams to establish linkage with bigger markets to maximize her profit and thus scaling up production.
Piara is the symbol of determination, hard work and pride. Seeing her transformation, many wretched women of her own and neighboring villages became motivated to start self employment and wish to come out of their grave days. In fact about 10-12 other distressed women took to the profession inspired by Piara and earning profit to support their families and having a better and solvent life.