Taught over 2,500 women to ride scooters and bikes in seven years at Tk 3,000 each

A girl from a village in Muradnagar began training women to ride scooters and motorbikes in Cumilla city. In 2017 she bought a scooter with savings and instalments, and the same year got a job at a government primary school. Seeing her ride to school, many women asked where she had learned, saying they wanted to learn too. Wanting to work independently, she left the job after two years. According to Prothom Alo, she began in 2018 with just three learners, and after promoting it on Facebook the numbers slowly grew. Activity stopped for a few months in 2020 because of Covid. So far more than 2,500 women have trained with her, at Tk 3,000 each. At least 30 learn every month, some coming from nearby districts and upazilas. For training she has five scooters and one bike, and five young women who learned from her now work as trainers at the centre. One learner says she used to spend Tk 12,000 a month on transport and now spends at most Tk 3,000 on fuel. At the start no one in her family backed her buying a scooter, and some people made unkind remarks.