Symbiosis International

Minara is 27 year old woman. She is living in a village named charpakerdah at Madargonj upazila under Jamalpur district. She was illiterate and unaware before joining Symbiosis Bangladesh. She is a house wife. Her husband name is Bahadur. They have a daughter. She reads in class two. Bahadur have only 6 decimal lands where they are living. They have no more land to cultivate crops and vegetable. Bahadur collected steel, plastic and other reject materials and sold them to recycle store in the nearest village market. The income was not sufficient to maintain their family. Because of that some time they took a loan from village money lender. The interest rate was very high. So it was very difficult to repay the loan.

Minara got an interest free trust loan support of 2200 taka from Symbiosis Bangladesh after the flood in 2004. She bought a goat and repaired her living house with this money. She joined a functional education class name ‘Shapla’ in 2005. Through this education class she became more aware about different social issues such as health, social justice, environment etc. She constructed latrine and tube well after she joined the group. She took 5000 taka advance from TTIS program and took a loan of 3000 taka from her savings group to make a house to rent TTIS program. She received sewing and TBA training from Symbiosis Bangladesh. Six month ago she purchased a cow of 7500 taka. Its current market price about 12000 taka.
    
Now Minara can read and write and can do simple accounts for her group and family. Her future plane is to establish a tailoring shop. After few months she sales her cow and purchase a sewing machine and cloth. The community respects her and she is grateful to Symbiosis Bangladesh.