Training in sewing and beauty therapy
On 19th October 2021, with the help of the World Sylhet Convention, Jalalabad Association UK and Just Help Foundation UK, UKBET started a sewing training programme as part of our ‘Women’s Empowerment Project’.
Our ‘Women’s Empowerment Project’ works with the female relatives of the participants of our working children projects. Our work aims to enable the women taking part to be self-reliant and not dependant on child labour.
Much like our other programmes, we faced many obstacles when launching this training programme. One such obstacle was that women did not want to venture into employment after the training. This is because they believed earning money was ‘the man’s job’ and their responsibility as a woman was just to get married and have children. However, with extensive counselling and support, we managed to help them see the benefits of financial freedom and independence that comes with earning their own money. They also came to see the benefit this could have on their children too, both in terms of their opportunities and future choices as well as helping to keep them in education. We are pleased to report that 75% of the students enrolled into the course were employed at the end of the course.
After this successful pilot, UKBET is now in the process of planning to continue and expand the programme’s topics. Training will now be available in beauty therapy, mushroom farming, poultry farming and Batik block printing. With one of our beauty therapy courses already starting, the participants are also being taught Facebook marketing to help give them all the necessary equipment to become launch their businesses and be self-employed.
After the four-month sewing training programme all participants were presented with a certificate and also a sewing machine at our awards ceremony. We were joined at the ceremony by guests Nazrul Islam Bason – UK coordinator of Biswa Sylhet Sommelon, Tahir Khan – the former mayor of Luton and chairman of Banyan British School and finally the executive director of UKBET, Mohammed Asaduzzaman Sayem.
If you have any questions please do email us at info@ukbet-bd.org. If you would like to support our work then please do consider donating or sharing our project news with your friends and family.