I travelled 9 hours south of the capital city of Dhaka down to Chittagong to interview Selina and write her story for CARE. Selina is on the far left and the other 4 women are her employees.
Here is the story that I wrote (caveat: it's for our donors, so it's a particular tone...)
"Selina and her family live in a tiny village in Chittagong, the southeast district of Bangladesh, an area dotted with rolling hills, lush vegetation and rice paddy farms. Only a few years ago, Selina, a bright-eyed woman of 30, lived the typical life of a poor rural woman in this region. She attended school through the 6th grade, when her family pulled her out to help with household duties. She was married to her husband in her mid-teens and bore her first son at 17, followed by a daughter and another son. Her husband worked in the homes of wealthier landowners for a small wage as a daily laborer, and Selina rarely left their small home.
Then, 3 years ago, a CARE representative approached her and asked if she wanted to join the Community Business Group in her village. CARE has implemented more than 90 such groups throughout Bangladesh by working with community leaders to identify the poorest people in each village, helping them organize, and providing trainings. These self-managed groups are primarily made up of women, and they band together to implement initiatives for economic development, including pooling their savings together for investing in activities such as agriculture and small businesses.
Traditionally one of the most conservative parts of the country, CARE’s work with women in Chittagong initially met significant resistance from village leaders. In the past few years, however, CARE has seen much progress as communities are seeing the benefits of involving women in society and in the workforce. The Community Business Groups have proven to be a powerful way for women to collaborate on income-generating opportunities for themselves and their families. With her husband’s approval, Selina joined her village’s group and attended one of the trainings conducted by CARE on basic financial management. She quickly showed an aptitude for numbers and was nominated as the group’s cashier in 2005.
When CARE decided to implement a new program called the Rural Sales Program, an innovative collaboration between CARE, rural women, and the private sector, they decided to draw on women in the Community Business Groups to participate. CARE has been working in Bangladesh since 1949, and has focused on economic development for over 20 years. In the Rural Sales Program, CARE helps rural women gain access to employment opportunities with the private sector, training them in sales, accounting, and business skills and organizing them as an enterprise group of sales representatives. In the process, the private sector is able to enter the rural market and rural people gain expanded access to products.
Bata, an international shoe company, agreed to partner with CARE in the Rural Sales Program early on. When CARE was looking for a manager of the Bata shop’s hub in the local village market, they approached Selina. “I think they came to me because of my potential and skill with numbers,” she says. The Community Business Group agreed to invest in her business and she opened the shop in 2006, becoming the only woman seller in the marketplace. “When I began, all of the other shop managers in the market saw me as a woman. But now they see me as a businessperson, a competitor, and they don’t even notice that I’m a woman any more because my business is the most popular in the neighborhood.” Last year, Selina’s shop was the most successful sales hub of Bata shoes in Bangladesh, and the company honored her at a ceremony and awarded her a cell phone.
The shop is well-stocked and meticulously organized, with shoes displayed on racks from floor to ceiling and snacks and toiletries hanging in cabinets behind the counter. Selina has expanded her business to include Square snack products and Unilever toiletries, other international companies partnering with CARE in the Rural Sales Program. Her shoes have become a sought-after luxury item, bringing in larger dollar amounts, whereas the snacks and small soaps and toothpastes are the most commonly purchased item, giving her consistent income on a day-to-day basis. To increase the scope of her business beyond the marketplace, Selina has employed 4 women from different villages as saleswomen, responsible for taking the shop’s goods door to door in their areas.
It is very uncommon for women to be working at all, and especially rare for them to be managers. Selina notes, “It was difficult during the first few months. People didn’t believe in me or my products, saying that they weren’t really from an international company and that the quality was better if you buy in the city. I had to gain their respect.” The saleswomen she employs agree, speaking of their challenges in the beginning. “People didn’t trust that we were really from Bata when we knocked on their doors. Now they seek us out to place orders. We even received several orders from schools to supply the shoes for uniforms!”
Selina’s husband quit his job as a day laborer and they are now operating the shop together, enjoying the benefits of a family-run business. Their youngest son, who has yet to begin school, ‘helps’ in the shop during the day. Selina boasts that she has the income for her older son and daughter to continue on to secondary school, noting that their education level will soon surpass her own. For Selina, perhaps the most unusual feature of her new role is her increased mobility, which is quite unusual for women in this area who rarely leave the confines of their homes, much less their villages. She proudly explains that she frequently travels from the village to the Bata office in the capital city of Chittagong, a journey of about 2 hours, in order to restock her supplies.
Most importantly, Selina and her employees are thrilled with the increased livelihood security and quality of life that their new jobs provide. Assia, an elderly widow, was struggling to provide for her 5 daughters and 1 son. From the income she has earned as a saleswoman, she was able to move into better quality housing, send her daughters to school, and purchase poultry to raise for additional income. She sums up the feelings of the women, “Working here has improved my family’s livelihood and is better than working as a day laborer. It is dignified. I am selling products of an internationally renowned company.”
Selina and her employees have seen great success in only a year, and they plan to continue expanding the scope of their business and increasing their capital. They hope to move to a larger shop, which barely holds all of the products for sale, and make it into more of a showroom. Throughout Bangladesh, women like them are making similar strides through the Rural Sales Program. After only 2 years of the program, over 1,000 formerly destitute rural women are currently employed as a powerful sales force, and more and more companies are starting to take notice."
Then, 3 years ago, a CARE representative approached her and asked if she wanted to join the Community Business Group in her village. CARE has implemented more than 90 such groups throughout Bangladesh by working with community leaders to identify the poorest people in each village, helping them organize, and providing trainings. These self-managed groups are primarily made up of women, and they band together to implement initiatives for economic development, including pooling their savings together for investing in activities such as agriculture and small businesses.
Traditionally one of the most conservative parts of the country, CARE’s work with women in Chittagong initially met significant resistance from village leaders. In the past few years, however, CARE has seen much progress as communities are seeing the benefits of involving women in society and in the workforce. The Community Business Groups have proven to be a powerful way for women to collaborate on income-generating opportunities for themselves and their families. With her husband’s approval, Selina joined her village’s group and attended one of the trainings conducted by CARE on basic financial management. She quickly showed an aptitude for numbers and was nominated as the group’s cashier in 2005.
When CARE decided to implement a new program called the Rural Sales Program, an innovative collaboration between CARE, rural women, and the private sector, they decided to draw on women in the Community Business Groups to participate. CARE has been working in Bangladesh since 1949, and has focused on economic development for over 20 years. In the Rural Sales Program, CARE helps rural women gain access to employment opportunities with the private sector, training them in sales, accounting, and business skills and organizing them as an enterprise group of sales representatives. In the process, the private sector is able to enter the rural market and rural people gain expanded access to products.
Bata, an international shoe company, agreed to partner with CARE in the Rural Sales Program early on. When CARE was looking for a manager of the Bata shop’s hub in the local village market, they approached Selina. “I think they came to me because of my potential and skill with numbers,” she says. The Community Business Group agreed to invest in her business and she opened the shop in 2006, becoming the only woman seller in the marketplace. “When I began, all of the other shop managers in the market saw me as a woman. But now they see me as a businessperson, a competitor, and they don’t even notice that I’m a woman any more because my business is the most popular in the neighborhood.” Last year, Selina’s shop was the most successful sales hub of Bata shoes in Bangladesh, and the company honored her at a ceremony and awarded her a cell phone.
The shop is well-stocked and meticulously organized, with shoes displayed on racks from floor to ceiling and snacks and toiletries hanging in cabinets behind the counter. Selina has expanded her business to include Square snack products and Unilever toiletries, other international companies partnering with CARE in the Rural Sales Program. Her shoes have become a sought-after luxury item, bringing in larger dollar amounts, whereas the snacks and small soaps and toothpastes are the most commonly purchased item, giving her consistent income on a day-to-day basis. To increase the scope of her business beyond the marketplace, Selina has employed 4 women from different villages as saleswomen, responsible for taking the shop’s goods door to door in their areas.
It is very uncommon for women to be working at all, and especially rare for them to be managers. Selina notes, “It was difficult during the first few months. People didn’t believe in me or my products, saying that they weren’t really from an international company and that the quality was better if you buy in the city. I had to gain their respect.” The saleswomen she employs agree, speaking of their challenges in the beginning. “People didn’t trust that we were really from Bata when we knocked on their doors. Now they seek us out to place orders. We even received several orders from schools to supply the shoes for uniforms!”
Selina’s husband quit his job as a day laborer and they are now operating the shop together, enjoying the benefits of a family-run business. Their youngest son, who has yet to begin school, ‘helps’ in the shop during the day. Selina boasts that she has the income for her older son and daughter to continue on to secondary school, noting that their education level will soon surpass her own. For Selina, perhaps the most unusual feature of her new role is her increased mobility, which is quite unusual for women in this area who rarely leave the confines of their homes, much less their villages. She proudly explains that she frequently travels from the village to the Bata office in the capital city of Chittagong, a journey of about 2 hours, in order to restock her supplies.Most importantly, Selina and her employees are thrilled with the increased livelihood security and quality of life that their new jobs provide. Assia, an elderly widow, was struggling to provide for her 5 daughters and 1 son. From the income she has earned as a saleswoman, she was able to move into better quality housing, send her daughters to school, and purchase poultry to raise for additional income. She sums up the feelings of the women, “Working here has improved my family’s livelihood and is better than working as a day laborer. It is dignified. I am selling products of an internationally renowned company.”
Selina and her employees have seen great success in only a year, and they plan to continue expanding the scope of their business and increasing their capital. They hope to move to a larger shop, which barely holds all of the products for sale, and make it into more of a showroom. Throughout Bangladesh, women like them are making similar strides through the Rural Sales Program. After only 2 years of the program, over 1,000 formerly destitute rural women are currently employed as a powerful sales force, and more and more companies are starting to take notice."
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