A case story from Shohojogita Fair Trade Producer Group, Bangladesh

Ruma Sarkar is the name of a dynamic college girl.
She dreamt a good dream for higher education. She is the second among 4 children of her parents. Ruma and her younger sister and brother continue studying at the local college. Last year, she took her final examination for her course Bachelor of Arts (B.A). They are living at Mirzapur village under Gazipur district which is close to the capital of Dhaka. Her father is a temporary bricks and sands supplier. Sometimes there is minimal work, as it is a seasonal business. So the income sources were limited and very hard to bear the expenses of the 6 members’ in the family. A couple of years ago, Ruma’s elder sister got married. She could not continue study because of financial crisis. Ruma proudly expressed that her mother is a very talented-woman. She knows how to continue supporting the family with the very small income they have. Her mother was optimistic and determined to continue study for her children.
But Ruma Sarkar was observing the crisis of her family silently and was searching alternative sources of a little income for maintaining cost of her higher educations (college fees, dresses, pencils, books and etc). One day she saw that one of her poor neighbors was making embroidery for SHOHOJOGITA. She had felt interest in doing something artistic like embroidery stitching.
She contacted the manager of SHOHOJOGITA. At first she got offered very simple work. Her sample was very perfect and embroiders were neat and clean. In the meantime, we received orders of Christmas stockings from Siham Craftlink- our largest Australian buyer. The first sample of Christmas stockings has been made by Ruma Sarkar. The colour-matching of threads and style of stitching was very eye-catching and perfect.
Now Ruma is the successful manager of 34 poor artisans at Mirzapur village. She is distributing work-orders, colour-matching of threads, checking quality of products and paying the wages to the producers and meeting regularly to resolve the problems of embroidery works .
For her hard work and sincereness, she is getting extra money from SHOHOJOGITA as an additional income for her study and her siblings.
She is very friendly with the other producers, as well as hospitable and dynamic approaching. All the women involved in these projects need continuity of work.
Ruma now feels confident that she will continue studying for her Master’s degree. Finally Ruma says,” I have changed my life with the help of SHOHOJOGITA. I hope that SHOHOJOGITA will continue this support to assist the poor producers .”