DHAKA, Sept 18, 2019 (BSS)- Forty-three-year-old Latifa Begum’s struggle to become self-employed is all about giving women the power and control of their lives to do what they want in situations where they were not allowed earlier. She seems to become a pathfinder to many as she showed the girl power to the people. Her plan was not based on a great desire to build a business. Rather it was borne out of necessity.
Latifa, hailing from Chawkaria of Cox’s Bazar district, has set up a bright example of how she reached a ceiling of earning money in her carrier. The housewife took up the challenge of overcoming initial fear and hurdles and developed a sense of passion for reaching a height in small business, and now she is running a six-member family.
Latifa’s determination and hard work to stand on her own feet has now made her able to run the two tailoring shops– “Latifa Ladies Tailors” and “Khan Tailors”—earning for her a profit of around Taka 15,000 to 25,000 per month.
It became a challenge for her as becoming a business woman from the tier of a poor housewife was a tough task to accomplish. Her arduous journey to become self-employed led to economic benefit not to an individual but to the society as well. Latifa has experienced a bitter past and has now become a successful entrepreneur. Her father was a farmer by profession and she was the elder daughter among five children of her parents.
Growing up in poverty, Latifa was dropped out of school and was married off when she was only 15. After the birth of her daughter two years later, her husband Hashem Khan, a rickshaw puller, was struggling to bear the expenses of the family.
Around 20 years have elapsed since Latifa started working at a tailoring shop to ease her family’s financial distress.
Latifa said, “One day, one of our relatives visited my house. After listening to my hardship, she suggested me to learn the works of tailoring. Accordingly, I went to a NGO and received a three-month long training. After, completion of my training, they helped me to buy a sewing machine.”
At the very beginning, Latifa started working at her house. Many women of her village came to her for making their clothes. The number of customers started to increase gradually.
After one-year, Latifa decided to take a shop for tailoring in local market area. She consulted with her husband and he consented to her idea.
She took a loan of Taka 25,000 from the NGO and started business. “With the passage of time, I started envisioning that one day I will launch a tailoring business at upazila market,” Latifa said.
“I became very busy. Later, I appointed a trained woman at my shop to deal with the customers. My income was also increasing day by day,” she continued.
“I took another shop at upazila market in 2009. I also appointed three women at my second shop. Now, five women are working at my shops. My monthly income is now Taka 15,000 to 20,000. During the festivals like Eid and Purja, the monthly income increases by three times,” Latifa said.
She said, “Now, my three children are going to school. My husband is also involved in the business.”
“I am proud of my wife as she has pulled out the family of hardship and established me as an honourable businessman,” said Latifa’s husband Hashem.
Surujpur Union Parishad Chairman Azimul Haque said, “Latifa has set a rare example in the community by not only establishing herself as an entrepreneur but also by creating jobs for women in need.”
Every challenge she is faced with now becomes a greater experience of learning her true power. Without any business experience before running the tailoring shops, Latifa credits much of her hard-earned success to her negation to accept failure as an option.
There are many ways in which we can empower girls and the task does not merely lay with the government but with everyone in the society.