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Nurjahan Begum has turned into a successful
entrepreneur, thanks to her village
phone business. Born in 1955, to an
impoverished family of six in village
Dhaleswar, in Sirajganj district, approximately
120 km from Dhaka, she has struggled
all through her early years merely to
survive. But her father managed to send
her to secondary school which she did not
finish. Like most other girls, she was married
off when she was only fifteen years
old. Nurjahan's husband, a landless day
labourer, was hardly able to feed his family.
Her sufferings multiplied as she lost
two of her sons for lack of medical treatment.
But she remained a fighter, and
looked for a new beginning.
Nurjahan finally took a big leap forward
when she decided to join
Grameen Bank in 1987. Inspite of vehement
opposition from the village elders
and even her own brothers, she took
her first loan of Taka 2000 to set up a
grocery shop. She has not looked back
ever since, as she gradually built up her
capital to expand her business portfolio.
She became a trained veterenerian and
would travel to neighbouring villages to
vaccinate farm animals and poultry. She
even picked up bee keeping and started a
beehive, which unfortunately was damaged
by the floods of 1998. That was a
landmark year, because her neighbours
and members of Grameen Bank centres
persuaded her to contest the local council
elections, at the lowest tier. Nurjahan won
the direct elections contesting against
women of wealth and status in the village
community. But her biggest investment
was the village phone, which she
acquired in year 2000, under a leasing
scheme of Grameen Bank. She has
invested Taka 25,000 in the business,
although she had never before even seen
a telephone. In a ceremony organized by
the local bank manager, the first village
phone of the area was handed over to
Nurjahan. "I asked our union parishad
(local council) chairman to make the first
call - he spoke to his acquaintance in
Dhaka for 12 minutes, fetching me Taka
300 as my first income from this phone."
People from far off villages were coming
to use her phone to either call or receive
calls from their relatives in India, Dubai,
Saudi Arabia, Malyasia and even in the
United States. There is even a home delivery
service, as Nurjahan takes the cell
phone to the homes of neighbors and
charges an extra amount specially for the
elderly or people who may be ill. She has
further diversified her telephone business,
by taking an additional connection from
‘Sheba’ another rural telephone operator
that provides WLL connection for operating
a fax machine at cheaper rates. She
has acquired 3 CD players for renting out,
fetching an extra monthly income. She has
recently bought a computer for her son
who finished high school. Nurjahan now
wants an internet connection - which
unfortunately is not available in the village.
But she is ever hopeful, that her son
will be able to set up a village kiosk or
even a cyber café in the nearest district
town
Report by Safwan Bin Shabab, as intern,
with the International Programme
Department, Grameen Bank. |
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