The worst blow to the family of seven brothers and sisters came when Rina was ten years old. Rina and her family lost their father and became helpless. In the rush of life, all the brothers and sisters became busy with their families. Then Rina’s life continued with her mother and younger brother. Rina Akhtar, daughter of Amjad Hossain from the Khalpar area of Tarabo municipality, Narayanganj is the sixth among seven siblings including her four sisters and three brothers. She is also the youngest among her three sisters. Her father Amjad Hossain was a weaver by profession. Therefore, Rina learned various techniques of weaving jamdani from her father.
Rina’s brothers could not save their father’s loom after their father’s death. Therefore, Rina was forced to work in other looms on a wage basis. Meanwhile, Rina has already been married off to Dulal Mia. Dulal Mia works in a local textile mill. Rina started saving a small amount from the money she earned by working on other looms. Then she bought a loom wood with BDT 1800 only and started making two pieces. Gradually, she started to increase looms by saving money. When Dulal Mia left his job, she taught him how to work on the loom and started weaving jamdani together with him. They started supplying Jamdani Saree based on the preferred design of the customers.
During Covid, Rina had almost no work order. This loss was further compounded by the death of the moneylender to whom she used to sell sarees. Rina incurred a big loss of BDT 80000-90000 during the pandemic. To recover from this phase, Rina and her husband started working harder than before. They took a loan of BDT 120,000 from the Recovery and Advancement of Informal Sector Employment (RAISE) project of WAVE Foundation. The loan helped them to revive their business.
Now, in one and a half months, Rina’s four looms produce four Jamdani sarees. Currently, two full-time and one part-time weavers are working in Rina’s looms. Two full-time weavers are paid half the cost of a saree made and BDT 2,500 is paid to the part-time weaver per week. Rina is now earning forty to forty-five thousand taka per month. They have also bought a house for herself. She has now learned how to plan a business from the training she received on ‘Risk Management and Business Continuity’ under the RAISE project. She has also understood the necessity of training to run a business and learned to keep the accounts of her business as well. At present, Rina dreams of setting up a showroom in the space in front of her house so that she does not have to rely on moneylenders to sell her sarees.
While extending gratitude to WAVE Foundation, Rina said, “Getting a loan from WAVE has benefited me profoundly. I could utilize the money to expand my business. Also, we want to attend more training like this, which has really helped us a lot.” Rina dreams that one day her looms will provide employment to many more people. The glory of Jamdani will spread across the country and abroad if everyone can sustain the tradition of Jamdani Saree.
