Live EVERYDAY like it is YOUR Last!: CUP ladies TRANSITIONING to a new phase

It has being a really honour to come along side the ladies and their children at CUP. http://www.childrensupliftprogramme.org/p/home.html

They didn’t hesitate to be-friend me and to show me kindness. I walk in to the room where they sit together and sew the Kanthas. I am greeted with beaming smiles and a warm retort of “SalamALEkum Appa”, “Walekum Salam” I would say. There is one particular lady who calls me her “Bandoubi”, meaning friend and would give me a warm hand shake and remind the others I am HER friend.

Infact, I would like to say I am a friend to all of them but this would not be true, I see myself as a figure in the background not really knowing what I am doing to support them but try whatever I can to aid when I am needed. It never feels like I can do enough, when it feels like they do so much for me.

When I am not with the children in an activity, or working on a document. I am often seen flitering around with the camera, recording “special moments”, births, group photos, individual photos, family photos but most curious to them were my photos of the Kanthas. They stared at me like a crazy person and some sniggered wondering why anybody would take photos of cloth? Why would they put the cloth in different poses? But on the grapevine, I have heard they accept that the people in “the west” are a little eccentric and like looking at photos of cloth when choosing there items. Satisfied with this reasoning they continue to sew, but think it is a bit strange.

CUP moved in to a new phase on May 1^st 2011. Twenty four women joined the training programme 2 years ago . Fourteen of the women are now employed by Hand &Cloth Bangladesh and one woman has a job somewhere else, and the others will remain in the training programme at CUP for the time being until they are ready to be transitioned. The children whose mothers were in the CUP’s training programme will remain with CUP for the next few weeks as Hand and Cloth completes its recruitment for suitable “iyahs” to look after the children.

The women will continue to make Kanthas for an international market at Hand and Cloth. They also have aspirations to work on new patents to make other sort after items in the international market. This includes bags made from jute and other locally sourced items. I have seen the samples and already tempted to place an order. This will be done with fair trade values and the women will be encouraged to take ownership in the cooperation in the future through many different aspects. See the Hand and Cloth website for more details. http://www.handandcloth.org/about

This is a real achievement for the ladies who are now employees of Hand and Cloth Bangladesh. All at CUP were already pleased with their progress, as they journeyed with these ladies and witnessed them leave behind chaotic lifestyles and slowly embraced a life of positive prospect with a renewed mind, and skills which will last them beyond Hand and Cloth if they choose to do so in the future. “Just a year ago all these women had lived on the streets surviving through begging for money or selling sex. Many had been trafficked, abandoned by their husbands, suffered violence and exploitation. All were sexually exploited or at high risk of being so. All are mothers of young children whose futures looked bleak. A year later and these women’s lives have been transformed. They are now confident mothers, living in homes and ready for this new challenge.”

Hand and Cloth will continue with the literacy programme, and offering emotional stability through counseling and a family planning worker. These we believe are imperative integral parts of their progress for themselves and their families.

CUP will maintain strong ties with Hand and Cloth. This CUP hopes will reassure the ladies as they enter this new phase. Hand and Cloth’s office and workshop is one floor up in the same building as CUP, so we will also see them regularly enough.

A new set of women are now about to join CUP’s training programme. They were all brought to CUP by the outreach worker who risks her own reputation to go to the various places to speak to women in sex work, and offering them the chance to reform there lives with the support of CUP.

Some are already here and for the month of April the CUP building has felt very full, but this overlap is necessary to reassure all the women of their new beginnings. We will also find more women join the training programme through-out the year. CUP looks forward to the year ahead, as they set to prepare these new women for brighter horizons. And positively anticipate the futures of the women who have now transitioned to Hand and Cloth.

The Photos here were taken at the leaving ceremony. CUP staff recognised the achievement of these ladies then the ladies spoke of how being at CUP has helped to transform theirs and their childrens lives and encouraged the new ladies who were joining to complete the course. They stood as living examples of what can happen when you decide to make a positive change for the future. These first set of ladies to transition from CUP had no examples to follow, but they had the support and the promise of the CUP staff that they will venture with them. AND THE PICTURES HERE SHOW THAT DAY HAS SURELY COME!