How Coca‑Cola® is lifting rural woman out of poverty
In Santoshpur and Pipradanga area of the Chitalmari upazilla of Bagerhat, women like Tapoti Rani Majumder, Unnati Mondol and Monika Baroi have transformed themselves into full-fledged business owners
Saddam Hossain
29-09-2022
In Santoshpur and Pipradanga area of the Chitalmari upazilla of Bagerhat, women like Tapoti Rani Majumder, Unnati Mondol and Monika Baroi have transformed themselves into full-fledged business owners
In Bangladesh, women especially rural women are restricted by conservative patriarchal values that usually restrict their mobility in education, enterprise leading to the country losing millions in GDP from a lack of participation.
These challenges can be seen in the form of discrimination, child marriage, dropping out of school, limited access to finance and malnutrition.
These restrictions leave only one path for these women and that is to be a stay at home mother and caretaker.
But one program is helping these women participate in the formal economy and lifting them out of poverty.
In Santoshpur and Pipradanga area of the Chitalmari upazilla of Bagerhat, women like Tapoti Rani Majumder, Unnati Mondol and Monika Baroi have transformed themselves into full-fledged business owners.
They turned their lives around through the Women Business Centre (WBC), a project run by the Coca‑Cola Foundation in partnership with United Purpose, an international development organization.
Topoti Rani Majumder, a 38-year-old entrepreneur from Santoshpur WBC, has been farming organic vegetables and fish along with maintaining a grocery store.
Along with four other members, she started her grocery store in 2017 with an investment of Tk50,000 and currently earns Tk14,000-Tk16,000 per month.
In her grocery store, she sells children's food, vegetable, milk, egg, water, and cold drinks after being trained by The Coca‑Cola Foundation and getting a freezer from the United Purpose.
She said at first it was the typical criticism and bullying but when she pushed through it and got her business up and running, “They changed their views after they saw my success and became my customers.”
WBC is a cooperation-driven business model, where people team up with other entrepreneurs and receive training and then contribute to the business based on their ability and skills.
The Coca‑Cola Foundation, in cooperation with United Purpose, provides essential equipment needed like freezers and laptops to conduct business. They also provide training, said the entrepreneurs.
The stories of success are almost the same for Unnati Mondol, an entrepreneur from the Pipradanga area of Chitalmari.
Even after finishing her Bachelor of Arts (BA), Unnati Mondol was dependent on her husband for finance. Then she decided to do something and received training from United Purpose in business marketing and communication.
In 2017, along with four other women entrepreneurs, she set up her own grocery store and started selling fish feed, fertilizer, seedlings, medicine, vegetable cultivation, cloth, and kit to test pH.
Currently, she earns Tk15,000-Tk18,000 per month.
Like Topoti Rani Majumder and Unnati Mondol, Monika Baroi of Pipradanga, Nony Rani Roy, Kakoli Bepari, and Sarmin Akter of Tungipara of Gopalganj, received training and support from the United Purpose and turned themselves to business owners and gained financial freedom.
What was wonderful to see is the camaraderie among all the entrepreneurs.
On our last day of the visit, there was a workshop along with a panel discussion titled “The role of Women Business Centre for women economic empowerment including social protection” at the Upazila Complex Auditorium, Tungipara, with the participation of around 50 stakeholders including WBC entrepreneurs from Khulna, Bagerhat, and Gopalganj, among other places.
Tungipara UNO Md Al Mamun was the special guest and Gopalganj DC Sahida Sultana was the chief guest.
The Coca‑Cola Foundation was launched in 1984. Coca‑Cola Company announced 5by20 in 2010, a global initiative to enable the economic empowerment of 5 million women entrepreneurs by 2020.