One writer’s tale of working in women’s empowerment
As I shoved the last few things into my pack, pointedly ignoring the zipper which was strained to bursting, I was worrying about whether or not I would be able to find a taxi. Early mornings are unusually quiet in Dhaka, one of the most populous capital cities in the world, and you never know your luck. I had a plane to catch, and it was with mixed feelings I was preparing to say goodbye to the country I had called home for the past year. And what a home Bangladesh had been.
I first arrived in Bangladesh in October 2008 as an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development (AYAD). The plan was to work as a volunteer for twelve months for an international development organisation and then see some more of the world. I quit my great job in Sydney, boxed-up my high heels, and tried to conjure up my very best interpretation of Earth Mother. I had images of becoming the next Angelina Jolie looking effortless-yet-earnest in head to toe linen in Cambodia, or unruffled-but-concerned in sub-Saharan Africa.
I think we both know the reality was just a teensy bit less … Hollywood, but for all the right reasons. Wile I worked on a range of projects in my role with an international aid organisation, it was the women’s empowerment work I loved the most. But to say I worked in women’s empowerment is not quite telling the whole story. I mean, sure, I could tick the box saying I worked on the empowerment of women and girls in Bangladesh, one of the poorest nations in the world. A big tick. But truth is, I didn’t do much. “Can you write your own name?” I might have asked. “Does your daughter go to school?” Probing question after probing question, I teased out the threads of women’s lives until they became whole stories without an end.
I might talk to their husband, or their son, but I might not. I might sit amongst the cacophony of colour a group of women create when they sit together in saris to discuss violence against women, or early marriage, or dowry, or divorce and ask what has changed their world. I might laugh at a woman pulling at my curls, tight and defiant in the humidity, and accept her offer of a banana or mango. I might cheer, or cry, or clap as I hear about twelve year old Tania who was promised to a man four times her age; or Nasrima who has rebuilt a road so her daughter can go to school; or Kuki who is training Tasmina to take over her role as leader of the local women’s empowerment group when the funding runs out.
I would lift my lens to meet their eyes. Trying to capture smiles, the shy ones, the individuality of the woman in her black chador, the wisdom in the grandmother, the hope in her daughter. Lights! Camera! Action! I brought all three with me, and fed off the symbols we devour of life for the bottom billion; dirt floors, roaming chickens, naked children, tube-wells. The bloated bellies aren’t so popular these days, or the big eyes staring vacantly, so I sought out the children in school uniforms, the toddlers with their little white teeth, snapping their smile as they lifted their eyes to focus on me.
At the end of the day I re-read my notebook, filled to the brim with more tales than I could ever tell, and sorted through them. Should I pick Tania and Shopna who have started a small spice business from their slum, fingers stained yellow with tumeric? Maybe Moutushi, the first in her family to finish high school, or Maya, the first to use contraception in her village? Should I choose the educator? The midwife? The mother? The village elder? The husband who supports his wife’s economic independence? How could I choose just one when the world is so full of little earthquakes reshaping what it means to be born a girl in Bangladesh?
Did I work in the area of women’s and girl’s empowerment? I guess I didn’t. Not really. But by telling the stories of those who do on a daily basis, I worked with a lot of people who do. This is their story.
