7th February 2013 Mr.

Mohammad Abdul Baten Lecturer, School of Environmental Science and Management Independent University, Bangladesh.

Sub: The final submission of the report Dear Sir, I am here to submit my final report on LFE, Spring- 2013 that you asked me to submit. I have gathered information on the basis of PRA method. So, I have tried to make a preliminary analysis, how social and economic changes affect the life of rural people of the village.

believe

that my of the

report

will

give

clear

idea

about

socioeconomic

condition

village.

Please report.

feel

free

to

ask

about

any

further

inquiry

regarding

this

final

It would be my pleasure to assist you.

Thanking You Sincerely Yours Kazi Mahadi Hasan ID: 1020136

At the beginning I would like to express thank Independent University, Bangladesh for offering such which I get the chance to a magnificent learn and a and unique course a rural through village and for I our

experience about huge to impact do

of Bangladesh. would always poor

It will be

certainly for

have

on me

looking

opportunities

something

villagers. This LFE (live in field experience) program has exposed my

something, which I havent seen.

I like to thank my vice chancellor for giving me the opportunity for realizing my roots. I thank Prof. Haroun Er Rashid for his teachings on peasants and village community and special thanks to Prof. Nazrul Islam, Director SLASS for hosting and taking our LFE responsibility.

I would also like to thank Mr. Abdul Baten course coordinator and MR. Abul Khair Joyet and Ms. Kazi Sajida Lisa guiding me on how Supervisors in Joypurhat, for

to make communicate with

the villagers and rural

network analysis.

Introduction
The definition of education in common usage, that education is simply the delivery of knowledge, skills and information from teachers to students, is not enough to capture what is really important about being and becoming educated. The proper definition of

education is the process of becoming an educated person. Being an educated person means we have access to best states of mind regardless of the situation you are in. we are able to make out accurately, think clearly and act well to achieve self-selected goals and aspirations. Education is a process of mapping your experiences and finding a variety of reliable route to best states when you find our self in non-optimal states. The idea that the definition of education is the delivery of knowledge, skills and information from teachers to students is misguided.
Our national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam wrote- the Good done by the civilization, half created by man and rests by the women. This is an eternal statement about the development of human civilization. From the dawn of the civilization women and men worked together to make the future brighter. Womens empowerment has been pointed out as an indispensable condition to reduce poverty in developing countries of the world. Also it has been closely related to democratization of those countries, in providing women with rights and opportunities equal to those which men have enjoyed so far. Even though its significance, the issue cannot be said to be solved easily, because there am many factors that prevent its progress.

Rational
Education and women empowerment are two significance factors in development of a country and to make sure proper development in the country, it is necessary to start it

from lower tier of the country .Generally education starts with school and Schools can empower children to become informed and self-reliant adults. Schools can instill our children with the spirit of inquiry and reform, essential to the creation of enlightened leaders that can transform Bangladesh into the just society that we aspire to. But the ground reality is disturbing. On the other hand, women are deprived in family and society, in decision making process, in administrative process of governance and most importantly in economic activities. Even the women contribute in the process of social development, which has financial value, are being ignored by the society. To ensure the participation of women in the said process they need to be empowered mentally, economically and politically. That is why modern social science termed women development as the Empowerment of Women. Empowerment of women is linked to the total human emancipation.

Limitations of the Study

This is common to a research work to face certain limitations. Constrains that we had to face are:

Verbal Communicational constraint: Although some of us are used to visit the village on occasion but none of us was from the Joypurhat District. So it was tough for us to appreciate their verbal communication.

Confusing informants: This is the most irritating constraint that we faced as the villagers didnt know the border of their own village. Some informants told their PARA as the separate village. So it took many days to clarify the map of the village. Conservative Attitude: The villagers were not so conservative but they avoided talking about some topic like Family Planning. Surprisingly we found the males seemed more conservative while answering this question. Besides they were also pretty much strict about the political discussions. Difficulties of getting income related information: People were suspicious of telling the luxury items they own. Some of the respondents also felt shy to express their economical agony; thats we really had a hard time developing the income assessment and individual cash flow and production cycle.

Materials and Methods

The process by which we collected data is Qualitative. The primary source of information was by field survey and interview of the locals. The secondary source of information was collected by the help of Government organizations & NGOs. Our primary data collection was by Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and questionnaire survey on 20 households. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is a shortcut method of data collection. It is a methodology for action research and utilizes a range of techniques. It involves local people and outsiders from different sectors and disciplines. Outsiders facilitate local people in analyzing information, practicing critical self-awareness, taking responsibility and sharing their knowledge of life and conditions to plan and to act.

We gathered different heterogeneous groups at places like local tea stall, local bazaar and NGO offices to collect information by the above mentioned method which provided fruitful results and revealed a lot of information required for our study.

Both of us split and collected information from different randomly selected households based on pre-designed questionnaire survey. This method allowed us to be quantitative on our research and draw conclusions required for the research.

The site for our survey was already selected by TMSS authorities. They took us to our designated areas and we started our survey. Our first task was to find out the geographic location of our para and village. So as soon as we got there we started to ask villagers about the information we needed.

Study Area

Social Map

East: Purbo para West:Poschim para North: Poschim para South: Hindu para
Uttor para
Poshi m para Tikk orpar a

Purbo para

South para

Site Location

PROFILE OF THIS VILLAGE:

This is an approximate info of the village collected by asking villagers and local govt. offices.

Bamonpur Village Name of the village: Union: Thana: Post office: District: Location: Population: Male: Female: Voter: Religion: Bamonpur. 4no. Mohammadabad Union Mohammadabad. Mohammadabad. Joypurhat. About 2 kilometers from TMSS. Around 2000. 65%. 35%. 500(42%). Muslim 65%, Hindu 30% & Others 5%. Total area: Total houses: Approximately 10 Square Kilometer. 120.

Total family: Mosques: Madrasah: Schools: Ponds: Bazaar: Culvert: Electric facility: Gas facility: No of Tube well: NGO:

Around 80 families. 02. 01. 01. 09. 01. 01. Most of the houses have electricity. No.(Few houses use Bio-gas) 25. 02.

Population: Bamonpur is a place consisting of about 190 households and with a population of around 2000 people. We have surveyed 20 households. Most of the respondents were middle aged and children. We have rarely seen old people.

Literature Review
WOMEN EDUCATION

In Bangladesh more than half of women are illiterate. Women's literacy will improve the quality of their lives. This will go a long way to help in reducing poverty, increasing income, and improving their and their families' health and nutrition. Research shows that women in Bangladesh have a lower social status than men. Women's status remains low from one generation to the next because of a preference for sons. It is also because the daughters have less access to food, health services and education. Women are often unable to participate at an equal level in decisions that affect the lives of their children and themselves. So, attention should be given to improve women's status in society so that they are empowered to make decisions which will be best for nutrition and health of their families.

COMMUNITY SCHOOLS
The initiative to support community schools run by NGOs as a way of bringing classrooms closer to girls homes has proven most effective in increasing girls access. This effort, reviewed below, is characterized by methods that enable greater participation between communities, schools, and teachers. In some cases, the curriculum is highly relevant to the communities that are served.

DEVELOPMENT AND WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

Sex and Age based Structure of the Population Table shows that like the male population of the Joypurhat district, women represent a vast resource. They must be provided equal opportunity

in education, employment and economic activities, and then only this resource could be utilized properly.

Table: Sex and Age based Structure of the Population

Age-base Group 10-14 Years 15-19 Years 20-24 Years 25-29 Years 30-34 Years 35-39 Years 40-44 Years

Total Population (%) Male Population (%) Female Population (%) 12.6 8.52 8.40 6.10 4.25 3.25 2.89 12.52 8.41 7.60 7.92 6.10 5.87 4.40 11.58 8.65 9.25 9.11 6.10 5.14 4.09

Source: Statistical Pocketbook, Bangladesh, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Government of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh (Page 124).

WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Womens enterprises were confined in sectors that were dominated by traditional gender role, such as food and beverage, health, education, webbing, tailoring and wholesale and apparel trade. But the situation is improving slowly; today women are also in occupations, which were solely controlled by the male before. Now, some of them possess top management post in private and public sector enterprises, sit in the

most important policy making bodies of the country, are entrepreneurs and own enterprises. In this case the Thengamara Mohila Sabuj Sangha (TMSS) chairman Prof. Dr. Hosne-Ara Begumis mentionable. Women are now seen also as owners and

managers of cold storage, travel agencies, interior decoration, engineering workshops and even garment industries, etc. Employed Persons 15 Years and Over by Status of Employment, Gender and Locality
Employment Status Both Sex Self-employed Employer Employee Unpaid Helper Day Laborer 19.1 28.4 5.6 31.2 0.2 7.0 Family 42.5 47.6 0.2 9.2 14.4 7.4 0.1 3.7 83.2 Male Female Rural (%)

Source: Labor Force Survey of Joypurhat

Womens Empowerment through Microcredit:

There are many NGOs that are working at Thengamara, Bogra for rural development. There is no specific development strategy for womens empowerment. The NGO TMSS in Thengamara,

Bogra revolutionizes the self awareness and expectations of women by offering access to non formal basic education and income-earning opportunities through crafts, chicken rearing, and fish pond cultivation, among others. Grameen Bank spurs the microfinance movement and provides loans to women to support these activities, while the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) has pioneered non formal education. BRAC is the largest NGO in the provision of education. All have played a fundamental role in helping women to achieve empowerment through education and entrepreneurial activities that initiated their

groundbreaking entrance into the market place. NGOs also serve to make family planning more acceptable. In addition, they serve to encourage the political empowerment of women. The promotional organization of the rural poor is recognized as the core activity of TMSS. Concern for women's development occupies an important place in TMSS overall development process. TMSS has mainstreamed women's development needs in all its programmers. Women groups constitute 64 per cent of all primary groups and are recipients of all development services in corresponding proportions. Women participation is also higher than men in different programmers. The participation is 65 per cent in human development training; 62 per cent in skill development training, and 60 percent in credit disbursement.

Result
NGO women are significantly ahead in respect of personal income, training received, monitoring by credit provider NGOs and in the case of institutional participation due to their intimate involvement with the micro-credit NGOs in compare to the Non-NGO women. PrePost-

Types of Women NGO women Non-NGO women All average

harvest activities 1.00 0.00 1.00

harvest activities 10.30 63.95 74.25

Home gardening 83.28 76.35 159.63

Poultry management 71.47 67.70 139.17

Goat rearing 67.87 15.20 83.07

SURVEY OF 10 HOUSEHOLDS, LFE SPRING 13

It is evident from the Table that major income of both groups of women came from home gardening. The next highest share came from poultry management. Accordingly, goat rearing, cattle rearing and non-agricultural activities contribute in the personal income of the respondent women. On the other hand, respondent women earn smallest amount from pre-harvest activities. However, the above Table shows that there is a significant difference in income earning of the women of NGO and Non-NGO types. Without an exception of post-harvest activities NGO women earn higher income from all the sources. This due to the reason that NGO women received various skill developments training like home gardening, poultry and livestock management, aquaculture, handicrafts making, tailoring etc. which is significantly increased their capabilities. Thus, they take part these types activities more perfectly than previous and earn more in compare to their counterpart Non-NGO women. On the other hand due to economic solvency and good social status of the family Non-NGO women do not work as wage labor. While due to temporary or permanent financial and food crisis a few of the NGO women earn by working as a wage.

Case Study of Harija Begum:

Harija Begum is a 31-year-old married woman. She lives in a village named Bamonpur, in the Joypurhat district. Harija Begum has two children. Her son is 13 years old and her daughter is 10 years old. They are studying at a local school. Her husband is now a businessman, a wholesaler of chicken eggs. Harija Begum is a successful woman in the village of Bamonpur. She was born in a very poor family with five children. It was impossible for her father to feed all of them properly. Her father was a poor farmer and had little land. When she was grade stopped because poverty. a student five, her of Before in she study their her

marriage, she worked as a housekeeper for a businessman in the village. When she was 17, she married a poor man. At that time, her husband had a small grocery shop in the village. Her mother-in-law and sister-in-law also lived with them. Her husbands income was very low and it was impossible for her husband to feed them properly. She was very disappointed because every woman dreams of a happy married life, but her situation did not change because of poverty. One year later, she was pregnant and

her husband spent all of his savings on her sister-in-laws wedding. She became too frustrated. Once, one of her neighbors came to visit her house. She told her about her situation. She advised me to do something by herself. She said that she was just a primary school graduate and had no capital and technical knowledge, and she is a woman; what could she do? She advised me to visit the local NGO office because she had heard from other women that NGOs provide money and training for hopeless rural women. Two weeks later, she met the same lady in a house and she asked me whether she visited the NGO office or not. When she gave her negative reply, she said, I know it is very difficult for a rural woman to do something. She encouraged me to go with her. The next day, she went to the local NGO office with her neighbor. After listening to her critical situation, the NGO worker advised her to attend a short training course on basic poultry farming. After finishing the training, they provided her with a loan of 5000 Taka. When she returned home with 5000 Taka, her husband did not encourage her to run a small poultry farm. He thought that it would be very difficult for a woman to run a poultry farm and that NGO money has a high interest rate. Then she became a little bit frustrated. One week later, she went to the local NGO office again. The NGO workers motivated her to start poultry farming. They also introduced her to other successful poultry farmers and talked about their success. The NGO workers told her that if she needed any help,

they would always be willing to assist. Knowing about the success of other women and the cooperation from the NGO workers made me feel confident. I decided that I would do something by myself. Returned home and started poultry farming the next day.
Her own confidence encouraged her to take a 2nd loan from the NGO that was four times more than the first one. She started her 2nd stage it was five times bigger than the first. She also received technical support from the NGO. After four month, she succeeded and her profits were good. Then she paid back my 2nd credit with interest. In this way, she continued her farming. One year later, her success became remarkable and her husband wanted to become involved with her poultry farming.

Case Study of Asia Khatun Asia Khatun is a 28-year-old widow. She has an 8-year-old daughter. When her daughter was a year old, Asia Khatuns husband died in an automobile accident. Her sister-in-law runs a dairy farm in the village. Asia Khatun learned from her sister-in-law that dairy farming is not a difficult business and the income is good. She became inspired, but when the issue of capital arose, she became disappointed. Her sister-inlaw advised her to take loan from a financial source. Asia Khatuns brother had told her that government banks never provide any loans without guarantees and there is a long filing process. However, Asia Khatun had another option: taking out a loan from a local NGO. Now she is a successful woman in the village and still is a member of the local NGO.

She was able to start business owing to NGO support. She lacked knowledge, confidence, and financing. She received a 6,000-Taka loan from the NGO and her older brother provided her with 2,000 Taka. With this money, she purchased two cows. She tried to feed them well. After four months, two calves were born and her cows started to provide milk. She received 3

liters of milk per day from the first time of her milk selling. per 20 is Taka her

liter

selling price, which means that, every day, she can sell 60 Taka worth of milk. The village people come to her house to purchase milk. In this way, she learned new knowledge about dairy farming; at the same time I also attended two workshops about dairy farming provided by an NGO. Within 8 months, she repaid her loan. She requested that the NGO to teach her more about dairy farming. They advised me to go the National Youth Training Center for advanced training. After finishing the training, she became confident. Then she planned to expand her dairy farm and requested that the local NGO provide her

with financial support. This time they provided her with a 15,000-Taka loan. With this money, she purchased a good-quality cow that provides me with 4 liters of milk per day. In this way, within two years her milk production increased to 20 liters per day. But she faced another problem that she could not sell 20 liters of milk from her house every day. Therefore, she went to the NGO office to discuss her milk marketing problem. An NGO worker told her that other women also face the same problem. Within a few weeks, the NGO created a cooperative organization of dairy farmers that collects milk from each of farmers houses and sends it to a city area for better sales. Now she doesnt have any problem in selling her milk.

Discussion
Only the successful women respondents mentioned that their quality of life had improved. They also reported that they can now send their children to school, leave the house, eat properly, and have a good relationship with their family members, including their husbands. Still, all five of Rural Womens Empowerment through Self-income the successful women are now satisfied with their lives and are respected by their family members, as well as by local people. According to these successful women, their quality of life had changed since their voices had become stronger, in the sense that they were able to speak with influential people, could advocate for issues that were important to them, and could move more freely outside of their homes.

Conclusion
This study discussed the empowerment process of rural women and their involvement with economic activities. Significant changes have occurred for the first five cases in the lifestyles of these socially oppressed and mentally dispersed women within the time span of about one decade. Presently, there are marked changes in their outlook towards life, in matters relating to family violence, their decision-making power, sexual division of labor, and their vision for the future. They are now more confident in dealing with and even in talking to male individuals, and their daughters are learning to face the world more bravely. The opportunities to take out a loan from the NGO could certainly empower women. However, since all of the women lack income-generating knowledge and most of them must focus on satisfying their physiological needs, the conditions in which they find themselves are not optimal for success in terms of developing a higher standard of living. In contrast, those women who joined the NGOs income-generating training program can be more successful.
Still our villagers are surrounded with lots of problems. The word of hope is that villagers are becoming educated day by day. So we hope that all the existing problems will be eradicated very soon and women empowerment will come in vogue. Government should take more necessary steps for the well being of the villagers. Finally, the experience to rural life was an amazing experience for all of us.

References
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Government of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, Statistical Pocketbook, Bangladesh: (Page 124). Labor Force Survey of Rajshahi, 2009-2010,Bogra (P-48) TMSS,The daily star, Women in all Spheres to be empowered ,The New Nation. 2007-12-10 http://www.tmss-bd.org/ Grameen Bank, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grameen_Bank www.unesco.org/education/poverty/grameen.shtml - France Brac, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRAC_(NGO) UN, "Millennium Development Goals: About the Goals," accessed online at www.developmentgoals.org/About_the_goals.htm, on May 15, 2003. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics, Financing Education Investments and Returns, Analysis of the World Education

Indicators, 2002 Edition: Executive Summary, accessed online at http://portal.unesco.org/

uis/TEMPLATE/pdf/wei/WEI_ExecSummary_Eng.pdf, on April 1, 2003. Willem van Eeghen and Kouassi Soman, "Poverty in the Middle East and North Africa" (1997), accessed online at www.worldbank.org/ mdf/mdf1/menapoor.htm, on Jan. 6, 2003.