Started with Tk 5,000, lost everything to a partner, recovered: Tk 76.5 lakh in sales in 2024-25 and Tk 15 lakh income

Nurun Nahar of Muktagacha, Mymensingh, began learning needlework in class three by saving her tiffin money to buy needles and thread. She passed her SSC in 2005 while working for wages at handicraft businesses. In 2011, when her husband fell ill and lost his job, she sold jewellery given by her parents, bought some handicraft clothes with Tk 5,000, and began selling them door to door. She later bought a sewing machine on instalments and made clothes to order. In 2016, on a neighbour's advice, she started a joint business, investing a Tk 5 lakh bank loan. Although the business was doing well, her partner secretly put the shop's agreement in her own name and took all the capital and goods, leaving her with nothing. She did not give up. In 2018 she took another bank loan and opened her own shop in Muktagacha, called Karunya Hastoshilpo. She repaid all her loans, bought five decimals of land and built a shop and home on it. She now has a showroom on Batirkol road in Mymensingh city and a workshop in Muktagacha that make nakshi kantha, sarees, three-pieces, orna and other handmade goods. In the workshop 120 women work for wages. In the 2024-25 fiscal year she sold Tk 76.5 lakh worth of goods, and after costs her yearly income is Tk 15 lakh. She has trained more than 1,200 women and this year received the national award in the economic success category on International Women's Day.