RANGPUR: Courage, commitment and hard-work simply turned Bharoti Rani Sen into an icon of women empowerment in a remote village of Rangpur, setting an example for many who would love to get over many odds on way to stand on their own feet, reports BSS. Born in 1977 in a Hindu family in Gangadas Barai Para under Haridebpur union in Sadar Upazila, Bharoti is the fifth among three brothers and three sisters. A tragic incident at the age of six made her life miserable as Bharoti lost her right eyesight as an arrow hit her eye while playing.
“My parents were extremely worried about my future,” Bharoti told BSS adding that she led life with sadness and her class friends avoided her. However, she continued to go to school.
Before her secondary school certificate examinations in 1993, her parents arranged her marriage with Shushil Chandra Sen, a poor day-labourer. She could not appear in the examinations.
Bharoti gave birth to a daughter—Sanchita Rani—in 1995, and later, two sons Sagar Chandra and Pradip Chandra amid extreme poverty.
“It was extremely difficult for us to manage food for our five family members. My husband frequently fell sick and we starved sometimes as he could not go to work,” she said.
Under such circumstances, one of Bharoti’s elder brothers took the responsibility of her daughter Sanchita and brought up her, educated her and arranged her marriage.
Her elder son Sagar had to stop studies while in class seven and took a job in a hotel at Taka 500 per month. “I got broken mentally. I wished my children would complete studies to become established,” Bharoti continued narrating her story.
In 2005, Bharoti got a job in an earth work project of LGED as a supervisor.
“I worked in the project for two years at Taka 1,800 salary per month,” she said adding that sufferings again mounted after completion of the project.
In 2009, officials of SKS Foundation, an NGO, went to the village to select extremely poor areas as a partner organisation of Involvement with Social and Economic Transformation of the Ultra poor (SETU) project of Care Bangladesh.
After listening to project staffs, Bharoti desired to become involved with SETU project though local community people did not support the project staffs.
Bharoti’s husband did not favour her. But later, he allowed her knowing that the project could improve livelihoods of the extreme poor. She received training on community leadership, savings group management and few more sectors.
Haridebpur Natural Leader Organization (NLO) was formed then with 140 natural leaders from different ‘Paras’ of the union.
Bharoti was elected General Secretary of Haridebpur NLO, which increased her movement to different institutions, including union parishad, to follow up people’s demand.
She successfully implemented total sanitation programme, selected extreme poor families in different ‘Paras’, arranged programmes in observance of the national days and open budget sessions at union parisahd.
“I became familiar with everyone through working hard in bringing social change. I received 2,000 per month from SETU project after nine months of voluntary services as project Adviser,” she said.