Micro-credit changes lot of poor women in Magura

Nabiron is seen engaged in making bamboo-made fish traps at her house at Chhonpur village in Magura Sadar upazila. She changed her lot rapidly by utilising micro-credit of Srijoni, a local NGO. PHOTO: STAR

The women are Nabiron and Khurshida. Once life was miserable to them. Timely intervention of two NGOs, Srijoni and Jagoroni Chakra made their life meaningful.

Fortune smiled on Nabiron, an abandoned housewife and mother of a son at Chhonpur village in Magura Sadar upazila when Srijoni trained her and offered her a loan of Tk 8,000 in 2002. Making good use of the loan, she setup a bamboo-based cottage industry on the land of her father. She started making bamboo-made traps to catch small fish called "Ghuni'. She used to make a fish trap at a cost of Tk 15 and sold it at Tk 35. Every Thursday she began to supply her product to wholesalers from her house at the rate of Tk 3,500 per hundred traps. The whole-sellers supplied her products to Faridpur, Rajbari and Chittagong districts.

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'Now I earn Tk 3,000-4,000 each month and my son Shafiqul is attending school,' smiling Nabiran told this correspondent. With the profit she also built a tin-shed house this year.

Once Chhonpur and surrounding villages were famous for bamboo-based cottage industry, according to Aminul a villager. But due to shortage of capital and lack of patronisation, the cottage industries were ruined, he said.

At present the lost glory of the villages were revived due to initiatives of Srijoni. One hundred twenty women at Chhonpur village are engaged in manufacturing bamboo-made fish traps. Some other women like Nabiron named Morzina, Aleya, Asmani and Farzana also became solvent by making such fish trap.

Another woman, Khurshida of the same village also became wealthy when Jagoroni Chakra, another NGO intervened about two years back.

Two years back the poor housewife and mother of three children had to live in extreme poverty. Because her rickshaw-puller husband could not feed his family of five members with his meagre income.

Jagoroni provided her with a micro-credit of Tk 10,000. Utilising the credit she also started manufacturing 'Ghuni'. Now her monthly earning rose to Tk 4,000 per month. She told this correspondent, with her savings she got her eldest daughter married to a man of her choice this year.