HELP-ORCA Employment Generation Program
"A project to make job-less youth self-sufficient
in income generation"
A field report by SpaandanB Representative
I was happened to be present as a SpaandanB representative in the rickshaw distribution ceremony of HELP-ORCA Employment Generation Program at Gangachhara Upozilla of Rangpur district of Northern Bangladesh. It is a poverty-stricken area which gets gripped by Monga every year, a near-feminine situation created by joblessness. River Tista, a turbulent one, flows right by the village, eroding the banks always in ever greater proportion. During monsoon season, this river causes lots of grievances to the people by inundating the banks. During such a flood situation, SpaandanB initiated a rehabilitation program to generate income among the local job less young people by providing them with rickshaws. Within a year this program revolved the fund and provided rickshaws to another group of people. This was a big success which motivated SpaandanB to seed the program with greater funds.
The rickshaws lined up against the school background offered a colorful site and drew a big crowd as well. Freshly painted and brilliantly decorated, all the rickshaws were just rolled out of the local workshop by the would-be-recipients. Few of them even earned their maiden “Khap” (earning) on the way to the ceremony ground! That showed how viable that project could be.
The leader of the team approached me and expressed his thankfulness to our donors. He reiterated their commitment to follow through the program and ensure that all the scheduled payments would be collected meticulously. He pointed out the fact that there was a wide-spread need for such support and that model would go a long way before getting saturated.
I knew only 10-20 rickshaws far outweighed the need. But it was good to see that at least few young men could start on a journey towards self-dependence based on that small support.
Project Details
It all started in 2005, after the devastating flood that left millions in Bangladesh home-less and job-less. As an effort to rehabilitate a miniscule fraction of this population, SpaandanB supported an income generation program with HELP-ORCA, two non-profit organizations dedicated for humanitarian programs and especially focused in the development of Northern Districts of Bangladesh. Instead of just providing free relief , the project explored a different avenue where it provided a group of job-less, flood-stricken young men with Rickshaw or Van for income generation. Two co-operative groups were formed with 33 members. These groups had their own executive committees. In the first year, a group of 11 people were given with the rickshaws/vans as a loaner for one year to run their livelihood. From the income generated out of pulling the rickshaw, they paid back daily a certain amount to their own co-operative group for a year. There was a team leader who, on behalf of the group, made sure that the daily deposits were collected regularly. After one year, sufficient amount of fund were regenerated to pay off the entire debt and those 11 people became the owner of the rickshaws for good. From the regenerated fund, the co-operative group provided 11 more rickshaws or vans to another group of people. This program generated wide level of interest in the locality. It has few note-worthy points -
- it preserves the dignity among the recipients since they earn the rickshaws as opposed to just obtaining them for free
- the capital becomes revolving and provides perpetual support to many beneficiaries
- the daily required deposit (about Taka 20) is small compared to what would others pay daily (about Taka 40) to a so called “Mahajan” ( a person who owns a pool of rickshaws and leases them out to people in exchange of a fixed daily deposit ). This does not impose undue hardship to the recipients to manage the deposit on a daily basis.
- The recipients become the owner of the rickshaw after one year, where as pulling Mahajan's rickshaw would never give them this opportunity.
SpaandanB is running another income-generation project with HELP-ORCA to help make distressed young women self-sufficient. This project is being operated in Gangachhara and Sadar Upozilla of Rangpur district. In these areas, a significant number of women are untimely widowed, divorced or rootless. Due to the social constraint, these women can not take up jobs like men do. This forced them to live in a miserable condition and waste an immense potential. To empower these distressed women, in 2006, SpaandanB started a Sewing Training Program. 30 women were brought under this project to form a co-operative society. An experienced trainer provided a 4 month long training on sewing, cutting and tailoring. After the training, 15 Singer Sewing Machines were distributed for income generation with the understanding that they would find local tailoring orders and would pay back a certain deposit to offset the machine expenses. Once the installments will get fully paid, another 15 machines will be distributed to the rest of the members.