For many women in Bangladesh, there are too few opportunities to contribute to the family income. This is the story of Goltaz. With the help of World Vision, Goltaz has developed a thriving business that benefits not just her own family, but supports and inspires many others.

In 2002, in South Patenga, Bangladesh, a married mother of three took her first steps to becoming an entrepreneur. Goltaz began her sewing business at home. She bought some old clothes and used the fabric to make dresses. In the first month she made a profit of 800 taka ($14). She used 500 taka ($9) from that profit to buy more clothes and in the following month earned 1,400 taka ($25). Over the next couple of years, she took on four employees. Goltaz was making a monthly profit of 10,000 taka ($176). out of an investment of 3,000-4,000 taka ($53-$70).

In 1991, Goltaz’s life was entirely different. She and her husband had had their first child and her husband, Harun, was working in a steel mill. But in the cyclone that occurred that year, he sustained a major injury to his leg and lost his job. Without her husband’s income, her family was plunged into desperate poverty.

“When my father would ask me if we had any food, I would tell him that we had already cooked. I told him so often, and some days he would doubt and put his hand into the furnace to check if it had been used that day,” says Goltaz. “Once we went without food for three days. I did not tell my father, for it would bring shame and insults on my husband. We used to boil leafy vegetables and have it with some salt added.”

When Goltaz learned of support activities being facilitated by World Vision, she went and joined a development group. “My husband told me: ‘You cannot save 5 taka in a month, how will you save 20?’” Goltaz says.

Haran reports that: “Other women did not welcome her well initially, because she was illiterate. But she was the first to master the skills from the trainings.”

The first thing Goltaz was able to do was to take a loan from the development group and buy a rickshaw for her husband. Later, they bought more rickshaws that they rented out.

But Goltaz also received sewing training from World Vision, and then a sewing machine was offered to her – she would have to pay half but World Vision would pay the other half. She was trained in various techniques – such as Block, Boutique, Chumki (glitter), Kach chupi (ornamental design), embroidery and handkerchief making.

In 2006, after watching Goltaz’s home-based business steadily grow for four years, World Vision helped again, this time by providing a shop for the Shapla Women’s Development Group. The shop, built at the front of Goltaz’s house, enabled more people to see that a fashionable clothes and garments store existed in the area – and this helped increase sales. In the first year at the shop Goltaz worked with 9 co-workers and saw a monthly profit around 15,000 taka ($264).

Today, Goltaz owns 3 sewing machines, one embroidery machine and one over loop machine. With 12 girls and women working in her shop and 14 others working from their homes, Goltaz sees a profit from 17,000 to 18,000 taka ($299-$316) every month. Goltaz’s contracts with other garment-providers employ more than 800 women and men in her surrounding district.

Goltaz’s success has been more than her own in many ways. There is now a business group managed by 60 women, who are making garments, selling them at specially set-up sales centres and generating extra money for their families.

Employment opportunities are also being made for young people. Goltaz’s own children are learning sewing and embroidery skills, at the same time as going to school. Yet when a Dubai businessman with a fashionable clothing business recognised the valuable skills in Goltaz’s eldest son, Belal, and offered to hire him, Goltaz realised she didn’t want him to go.

Goltaz wants her children to continue to grow her business, so that the next, and possibly future generations, may have a legacy to hold on to.

The economic development of poor communities is an integral component of World Vision’s work, and funded by a number of programs. You can help us continue this work by pledging your support to SEE Solutions or Child Sponsorship.