Market stall quadruples family income

Caritas Bangladesh has been working with women in Sobeda market in the Khulna region of Bangladesh to improve their livelihoods and income generation for over three years.

Caritas Bangladesh works with the women in the local communities to overcome the challenges in accessing local markets. Traditionally women were not allowed access to market; they had to depend on their husband or neighbours.

However things are changing in Bangladesh, women have traditionally been involved in seed preservation only, now they are involved in all stages of agriculture from seed collection and sowing to cultivation and needed access to markets to sell their produce.

At the beginning local men objected, they said why should women be shopkeepers? We asked them where else can we go? We cannot go that far away to set up our shops. These shops will help us to feed our children

Mazeeda

To overcome the challenge of selling their produce Caritas Bangladesh worked with the women, the market management and local government officials to open a specific area of the market where women were able to buy and sell their produce independently. One women involved in the project called it the “housewife market”.

Mazeeda, who like many of the women worked as a domestic maid before joining Caritas Bangladesh describes how some of the men reacted “At the beginning local men objected, they said why should women be shopkeepers? We asked them where else can we go? We cannot go that far away to set up our shops. These shops will help us to feed our children.”

Assia has had a stall at market for three years; she describes her reaction to the men at the start of the project. ”It is the nature of people to say things when you start something new, but I don’t care about that. I am a daughter of this village.”

Thanks to Caritas Bangladesh Assia has quadrupled her family income, from an initial investment of 500 taka (£5) Assia’s stall is now worth 2000 taka (£20). Before joining the project Assia family was struggling “We could not send the eldest son to school as I did not earn much that time, so we arranged for him to get training in motor mechanics but thanks to this project the younger two kids both go to school.”

Nobody objects to us [being in market] anymore

Mazeeda

Talking with Assia it is obvious how much her life has changed since joining the project “‘I got married very early at about 13 or 14 years old (she says with a smile). I went to school for a few days only. I can write my name and read a little.”

Having received training from Caritas Bangladesh

This revelation from a women who has been running a market stall for three years is even more astonishing because as we are talk Assia continues “business as usual” bargaining with other women and calculating the cost of each transaction.

Assia dreams that her daughter will have a better life than herself ‘I will not marry her off soon. I will educate my daughter, so that she might get a job. She won’t get married young she should be 25-26.’

The project has helped the women to increase their family income, educate their children and also helped them grow in confidence. She asked if she used to say anything when the men objected to the women selling their produce in market ‘At first I was a bit shy, but now I can protest!’

Mazeeda agrees “Nobody objects to us [being in market] anymore”.