Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152541240772247

From Chris Macrae

- hi here is transcript below and link to 5 minute audio of Naila's recent testimony to UN women

- the whole 80 minutes of testimonies and discussions is at

http://www.empowerwomen.org/circles/women-in-power-and-decision-making

Briefing from Naila Chowdhury

We work on necessary platform for full participation of girls and women in Bangladesh mainly, but now we are replicating the same project in Africa (Kenya) and in the US itself. The pilot project which is now 2 years old n Bangladesh is to ensure that we address the segment of girls and women who are not in the social norm of life - because they are battered women and I deal with acid survivors.

In Bangladesh, I am sure many of you have heard of victims of acid attacks. Once they get treated - as their whole life changes and they are mutilated for life - we teach them skills in computer ICT and we are advancing those courses into software now also. So their earning from $50 dollars a month is going up to almost $200 dollars a month, which is a substantial amount of earning for a country like Bangladesh. What we are also adding on in touching their family life is sustainable projects by giving them nanocredit and by bring green energy intp their life -teaching them how to use healthy ways of cooking and solar light -we are trying to teach them skills on how to lead a good family life when they go back into their home.

So other than their earning, we give them loans through nanocredit -this nanocredit we replicated from Kenya actually. These girls once they learn skills need money to get into entrepreneurship other than working in software. So we are trying to give them small loans through mobile app airtime. So we got involved in this project in Africa, where the company is called MODE- they give nanocredit through mobile airtime and partnering with telecom companies. So what they do is give monthly airtime, and they return it through projects and we teach them entrepreneurship. So that's how they get economically empowered and gain independence

So we are replicating nanocredit with the acid survivor project in Bangladesh now, and next week we are going to do a pilot project beyond IT to see if they can start their own business and be their own leaders and be example ambassadors in their own area.

We are trying to replicate similar projects in the USA as well. Recently we did a survey: there are about 4 million homeless and about 64 million immigrants who dont have full access to technology in US itself. So we have partnered with Better World Wireless -so bringing Bangladesh technology and Kenya technology into America we will do 3 projects at the same time- in Kenya, Bangladesh and US, and we are trying to see if we customise it a little whether it can be replicated anywhere globally. And since it worked in Bangladesh and Kenya, we are very hopeful it will work in US as well. And we see people like techsoup and microsoft coming forward and promising 1 million handsets to Better World Wireless. So we thought that if we do nanocredit with them, we can reach pout to the homeless in US- and our target is women and girls.

So we are poor-focused and economic empowerment of women, while we teach them skills to ensure they get money in hand to start their own business also -and create employment instead of asking for employment: this is the maoin focus