We run this programme to help low-income families build a livelihood that can hold steady. Our starting point is simple: when a household earns enough to cover its own needs, it can keep its children in school, seek treatment without borrowing, and make choices that do not cost the family its health or its surroundings.
The work centres on practical technical training in trades that need little capital to begin and that local markets genuinely demand — work such as tailoring and handicrafts, small-scale food processing, repair and maintenance skills, poultry and livestock rearing, and homestead gardening. We teach by doing rather than by lecture, and our support does not end when the training does. We help participants plan a small enterprise, price their work, find buyers or employers, and get past the difficulties that come in the first months of earning on their own.
This matters because so many livelihoods in Bangladesh rest directly on land and water that are under strain. Flooding, riverbank erosion, salinity and polluted rivers take away farming and fishing incomes, and families left without options are often pushed into the most hazardous and most polluting work available to them. A second skill, held within the household, is real protection — for the family and for the environment it lives in.
The programme is open to low-income households across the country, and we pay particular attention to women, to households that depend on a single earner, and to families whose income has been lost to disaster or displacement. Families and community groups who wish to take part are welcome to contact us.