DHAKA, May 24, 2022 (BSS)- When Bangladesh has experienced some successes in self-employment ventures, the case of women empowerment is yet to arrive at a satisfactory level. Women of all strata particularly the poorer segment go through many hurdles in their race to get empowered. Looking at the global perspective and also the domestic socio-economic scenario they struggle with renewed interest in becoming financially solvent as empowerment is an engine of economic power.
 
The story of Annika of Dinajpur speaks of a courageous woman's stride of how to make oneself self-empowered and thus setting an inspirational instance of woman empowerment.
 
Though she comes of a well-established family of the area, she didn't want to sit idle. Bearing a deeper insight ofbringing out women of the cycle of unemployment, she started to sell saplings of tea through online.
 
Later, she added polao rice (chinigura rice) to her list of products selling. She gets response well and she sold Taka 20 lakh of chinigura rice in six months.
 
Annika has a facebook page named 'PaikariGhar'. She opened the page in the facebook just after beginning of her business and started to upload pictures of the rice which is famous in Dinajpur district.
 
Even, she uploaded different pictures- polao curry, hotchpotch and tehari. She was getting orders gradually. She also involved with an e-commerce site.
 
Currently, Annika is passing busy time in her business.
 
She visited rice mills of the district along with her father Anowar Hossain just after getting orders from customers. She also sends pictures to the customers.
 
Annika said she has sold more than Taka 20 lakh within the first six months after she started the business. She reached the rice to the customers at different districts through courier, she added.
 
She said, "It is really amazing for me as I'm sending the rice which is our heritage to other district's people. I really enjoy it."
 
Golam Rasul, one of the customers of PaikariGhar of Mirpur-10 in Dhaka, said the rice of Annika is really good. "Earlier, I bought rice (chinigura) from local shops. One day I found the page and gave order. The rice was really good. Now, I'm buying my rice (chinigura) from Annika."
 
Runia, a housewife who used to live in Bashaboo area of Dhaka, said, "I also buy my family's daily essentials from different online shops as me and my husband are service holders. One day I saw that one of facebook friends shared the page 'PaikariGhar'. I also gave order for five kilograms of rice (chinigura) from the page by seeing the review of my FB friend. Now, I'm regularly buying rice from her."
 
 Not only rice, Annika is also selling saplings of tea. She also wrote different techniques of caring tea plants in her page.
 
Annika said she sold about 5000 tea saplings till now and the price of every tea plant is Taka 40.
 
Annika said she is a student of Agriculture Department of Hazi Mohammad Danesh Science and Technical University in Dinajpur. "I was encouraged by one of my friends. She was selling ornaments made by soil through online. I was inspired to see the business of my friend and started to sell tea plants. And later, I started to sell rice (chinigura)", she continued.