Sheuli Begum Changes her Fortune through Mini-Garments

Konabari is one of the busiest place in Gazipur City Corporation. There are pitched road but still the essence of village environment is not totally cleared yet within this municipal town. Most of the roads are narrow and high volume of transport causes serious traffic jam within those roads. Sheuli Begum, a hardworking and industrious lady lives in Dewliabari village of Konabari area under Gazipur City Corporation. On 2000, she got married with Kamal Hossain and they have two children – Elder son reads in HSC and younger son reads in class six. They have a mini garments factory in Konabari.

We wanted to reach our destination before sunset but heavy traffic jam bound us to reach there after sunset. When we reached towards our destination, we found that Sheuli Begum sewing her garments products and her husband tied their garments products. After meeting with us, Sheuli Begum started to the story of her struggling life. Sheuli said that on the year 2000, I got married with Kamal Hossain. At that time kamal Hossain worked in a plastic Factory (Shapon Plastic). Sooner their elder children Limon was born and it was impossible for them to bear the family expenses with their limited income. For this reason, they decided to do something. At First Kamal shared their thinks with his Boss (Owner of Shapon Plastic Factory) and he gifted them a sewing machine to start their business. At First Kamal Hossain purchased raw materials – False Cloth (Jhut Kapor) of 500 taka for preparing baby clothes like T-shirt and Trouser. When Kamal brought the raw clothes, Sheuli saw that the clothes were not good, cut into small pieces, so he suggested to return them. And when Kamal went to return, the seller gave him less amount of clothes. So they didn’t earned profit after selling those products. After a few days, Kamal started to get ideas about business. He started selling 10-12 dozen goods in vans every day in nearest local market. Sheuli said that if we bought raw material for 500 taka and sold the goods made with it, we easily earned profit of 500 taka from that.

We decided to expand our business. At First we received loan amount (2002) of 3000 taka from Environment Council Bangladesh (Previous Name of Ambala Foundation) of Sheuli Mohila Samiti of Konabari Branch. Then we received loans several times from Ambala Foundation and continuing our business well. In the Beginning Kamal sold those goods after returning from Job, but after four years he left from the job. Now we totally concentrated on our business and we started producing different types of products: T-Shirt, Polo Shirt, Trouser, Tops, Ladies items, etc. Sheuli said that everything was going well and we earned sufficient profit from our business. On 2008 Kamal decided to go Itali and he felt into the clutches of the fraudster and wasted all his money (Around 12 – 14 Lakh Taka). Then we again received loan of 50000 taka from Ambala Foundation and purchased 4 sewing machines (3 Foot Machine and 1 Plain Machine). We tried our level best to overcome our loses and at last we succeed.

Now 20 staffs including cutting and production section regularly worked in our mini garments. They started their working on 8.00 am and returned their house at 08.00 pm.  In every month we provide 1 lakh taka salary to all of our staffs. Highest salary 10000 taka monthly and lowest salary 5500 taka monthly – depends on their performance and experience. Production staffs had no fixed salary, their received commission based on their production. During this period of festival, they earned 18-20 thousand taka monthly. These workers used to get addicted before. When they came here to work, they gave up this addiction. Their family members are now tension free and all the staffs now contribute their family income through this earning. Now we received loan Amount of 4 lakhs taka from Ambala Foundation. Now we invest 25 lakh taka in our business. In every month we spent 2.5 lakh taka for house rent, office rent, staff salary, etc. We earned 3.5 lakh taka per month through our mini-garments. We don’t need any designer for selecting suitable design for our products. Our elder son Limon chose all the designs and he mainly downloaded those designs from internet.

Kamal Hossain said that this year we experienced the threatening effect of Corona Virus. During this period of lock-down, everyone suffered a lot and I also lost 03 lakhs taka. But I never stopped providing my staffs salary. They worked here regularly. At that time, I stored all of my products because before lockdown, I purchased sufficient raw materials. Now I sold those products. I basically sold those products in Sylhet and local markets of Gazipur and Dhaka. In the period of lockdown, I distributed 6000 masks for free among the people of Gazipur City Corporation. I also sold 15000 masks in the period of lock down when corona pandemic broke out in an epidemic form.

In the future I want to buy a piece of land to make the own factory building. I wish, I can create employment of 1000 staffs in our garments factory. For fulfilling my desires, I expect more financial support from Ambala Foundation.