Micro-Enterprise:
Transformation Through Business Training
A Bangladeshi couple finds healing for their relationship while learning to form and run their own business
Sorab and Hacina, married for 12 years, are now also business partners because of their involvement in a Food for the Hungry savings and learning group in Bangladesh. This is unusual in the Muslim culture, where husbands and wives rarely work together.
It started when Hacina took a loan from her savings and learning group to buy a sewing machine after attending a trade class. She now makes clothes for children, which Sorab sells at the central market. They make at least 2,000 taka ($30) each month in profits, helping to meet their basic family needs.
In addition to their newfound business, the couple also attended a Food for the Hungry marriage class that helped to heal, restore and rejuvenate their relationship as their beliefs and perspectives gradually transformed.
Not only do individuals improve their business and personal lives, members can also borrow money as a group and use it to invest in an income-generating activity. Cattle fattening is a profitable small-scale livelihood option among the rural poor in Bangladesh.
Sorab and Hacina’s savings and learning group is working to become a registered community-based organization (CBO), which is an independent legal entity that has the capacity to facilitate and deliver services to the community. As a CBO, their activities may include road repair, health and nutrition promotion, medical assistance, water and sanitation development, education services, and caring for the environment.
As Food for the Hungry walks with churches, leaders and families in Bangladesh and around the world, local citizens like Sorab and Hacina are guided by God’s principles and empowered to serve their own people – using the resources available to them – to bring about true transformation of hearts and minds for many generations to come.
What we do
As Food for the Hungry walks with the poor to bring about sustainable change, AIDS orphans learn income generating activities needed to survive, farmers develop their lands to produce more crops and create jobs, and mothers learn new skills to start local businesses.
As individuals and families develop their God-given potential – much like that of Sorab and Hacina above – entire villages are transformed physical and spiritually. Food for the Hungry considers it a privilege to be part of coming alongside the poor and helping them solve their own problems and discover God’s plan for their lives and communities.
FH GLOBAL
