CARE changes garment workers' lifestyle

Three years back, due to poverty, Taslima had sent him to the orphanage, keeping her two other minor sons with her.

She with her three sons started a grim battle for survival after her husband married another girl.

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Taslima told this correspondent she does not have to worry now. She also bought gold ornaments for her. 'I don't want anything but education for my children', she said.

Female garment workers like Taslima saw a ray of hope when CARE, Bangladesh undertook a comprehensive programme to improve the standard of living of garment workers in Chittagong Export Processing Zone (CEPZ) in 2002.

Under the programme, 15,000 garment factory workers living at Bandartila, Navy Gate and Saltgola here were brought under the CEPZ Corporate Pilot Project (CCPP) being implemented in collaboration with a local NGO, Mamata.

The objective is their economic emancipation through micro-credit, creating awareness about their rights, practising hygiene and combating AIDS/HIV. The project started with the Youngone factory workers while it was financed by a major buyer US based company, Timberland through CARE.

CARE provided Tk 20 lakh taka revolving fund (that has to pay back) to Mamata to run the micro-credit project but now it has reached to three crore taka even taking only two percent interest for loan," CARE Asistant Project Manager Sajia Akter said to this correspondent.

Taslima took loan from Mamata for four times. She bought an embroidery machine and a sewing machine. She works in the evening after coming back from the garment factory. She sells sarees and other dresses making various designs on those.

" Now I earn Tk 10,000 to 12000 every month," Taslima said to this correspondent.

Like Taslima, other garment workers like Afroza, Beauty, Halima, Nurun Nashar and hundreds of others earn extra money in this manner.

CCPP project co-ordinator Hosne Ara informed that previously there were no savings and credit institutions within the reach of garment factory workers.

'We do not work like other NGOs. Even we take savings amounting to two taka only. We give them loan with two percent interest so that they can pay back on installment within six months,' she told The Daily Star.

Booths were opened in the factory to collect their monthly savings and installment of their credit so that garment workers can easily run the programme. They keep open their office till late evening.

The activities of the pilot project will expand covering 12 factories of Youngone Group of Industries where 21,000 workers are employed, 18,000 of them women.