Dear Friends,
We have successfully completed our last meetup of Bangladesh Local Guides to Support Woman in Small Business in light of International Woman’s Day. We 17 members from Bangladesh Local Guide attended in the meetup. BDLG remark the day to celebrate and this year was not even exception like every year. But, this meetup carries a lot of importance considering other various aspect, because the meetup focused on multiple issues together which are:
- Support a woman entrepreneur.
- Listen real life struggle of a woman.
- Gather knowledge on What really need to become an entrepreneur.
- Talked about organic products & crafts made from Jute.
- Business potentiality of Jute fabrics, products & crafts in local and international market.
For this meet up we choose a unique woman because of her extraordinary multiple activities towards woman’s self-reliant, which helped her to become an entrepreneur and create opportunities for other woman to become financially solvent.
Also, we choose Ms. Ishat for this meetup, because she is an entrepreneur from the love, affection and passionate of hard work.
We started the meetup with the introduction of Bangladesh Local Guides participant’s member and spent sometimes with Ms. Ishrat Jahan, Owner of K2K Wears International. Basically the initial session was real life experience sharing of Ms. Ishrat with us as why and how she has become an entrepreneur.
When she decided to change her profession form Teacher of Teacher’s Training collage. Her entrepreneur struggle starts since 2010 by forming a company i. e. K2K Wear International for doing handicrafts and other craft item business purpose. But, she was not at all satisfied with the craft business, because product demand was very low in the market. While she was looking for alternative product for business stability she tried with many products and finally she picked jute product for manufacturing. Because, in Bangladesh jute is available but jute product market is totally unbalanced as well as product variation is less. Also, Bangladesh has a very long history of jute manufacturing & Exporting. Because of that, there was a saying that, “Jute is the golden fiber of Bangladesh”. It is to be mentioned here that, the largest jute mill in Asia i.e. Adamjee Jute Mills was situated in Bangladesh. Also, she has taken the challenge and opportunity together by keeping in mind the tradition of jute in Bangladesh.
It is to be mentioned here that His only son, Abdullah Khalid Ibrahim, was the inspiration behind his indomitable entrepreneurship.
Her journey with the jute products manufacturing begins just in the end of 2018. But, it was really struggling for her as started without knowing anything about jute and not even knowing any one from the industry. Also, it was really difficult for her to move many places for gather knowledge. Finally, she made it successfully only because of her hard pursuit and apathy. In the first year of her business she has shown daringness by participating in the “international Tread Fair, Bangladesh. Which was really a tough decision for her according to her stated.
Today she has given employment of 15 permanent worker & staffs and around 80 workers are working with her on piece rate basis. Most of the works are female. Producing Jute shopping bags, seminar bags, file folders, gift items, corporate items, ladies’ bags, various types of house hold products from her factory for local market as well as for export to other countries.
It is very remarkable to be highlighted here that, she is the first inventor of luggage from jute fabrics. We are proud of her for a unique invention.
Coming from the teaching profession, she has become an entrepreneur, leaving behind her strong interest and family adversity & support. As a young entrepreneur in the jute sector, she become a well-known face within a very short time. The jute products made from her factory have already become very popular locally and globally, only because of quality & products varieties.
Hon’ble Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has highly praised her for seeing her Colors bag at the last National Jute Fair. Also, she has been honored and awarded for her extra ordinary die heart contribution for the jute product Industry
We find Ms. Ishrat as a soft spoken, hardworking, softhearted and visionary lady. Beside an entrepreneur, she has another identity as a social welfare activist. She is the founder of NEED foundation. The foundation work for specially under privilege woman beside other social development work.
Our BDLG members are very happy to visit jute product manufacturing factory as never visited before as well as got opportunity to expose new experience. Specially few textile engineer from our BDLG team was with us, the meet up was very helpful for them. Also, me being the head of Human Resources and Supply Chain Management from a renowned RMG (Ready Made Garments) factory proactively hosting and visited the factory for enriching my professional knowledge and Mr. Tanvir Akther, Head of Operation of Burger King Bangladesh join us in the visit, we are really thankful to him.
She is also very pleased to meet with BDLG members as because she never knows Local guides work for small business support beside mapping.
Also, We have ordered for stitching backpack for our upcoming 7 Years Celebration event from her factory to support small business.
Final I have stepped my support to her on behalf of BDLG and explain her how she can get business benefit from google my business. So, support her to open an account in the google my business and corrected the location and address for her company K2K Wears International .
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Special Thanks @MahabubMunna and AbdusSattar for supporting to organize and host the event.
Hope out support towards woman as well as to small business to be continued.
পাটের সাথে আমাদের ঐতিহ্য মিশে আছে। একটা সময় পাট আমাদের অর্থনীতিতে অনেক বড় ভূমিকা রেখেছে কিন্তু দিন দিন কালের গর্ভে হারিয়ে যাচ্ছে, যা মোটেও কাম্য নয়।