Rashida (35) lost her desire to live when her husband disowned her for good. She fell in deep trouble as she had nothing but three children’s responsibilities.
“When my husband decided to leave me, I was in extreme shock. I came to my parent’s house and started to work as a maidservant. But I was not able to feed my three children properly with the meager income that I made,” she said.
Rashida originates from the Syampur Union of the Jamalpur district. She joined SWAPNO last year. After joining SWAPNO, Rashida started working on maintaining public resources.
But in March 2020, while working, she heard from one of the Union workers about the outbreak of Coronavirus.
“Union worker told us that due toCOVID-19, we can’t work from now. We have to stay home now. I was worried about my children,” she added.
To lessen the anxiety of the beneficiaries, SWAPNO started conducting awareness-raising activities by distributing posters and leaflets for both the beneficiaries and community people.
“We learned that we have to maintain social distance. I decided to share my learning with my family and community people. They also became aware and started to follow the rules,” she added.
As public works program was stopped suddenly, Rashida had no money to buy food for her family.
“I was in dire need of money. My children were starving. At that time, SWAPNO helped me again. I received BDT 1500 as cash support from SWAPNO, which helped me a lot,” she said with a smile.
Like Rashida, SWAPNO has supported around 6000 beneficiaries with a solidarity cash grant of BDT9,096,000(USD 0.11 million) under DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australian Government) response. SWAPNO also arranged portable cash payment points for easy withdrawal. This initiative helped SWAPNO women to meetup their emergency requirements during COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition to this, each of the beneficiaries received food and hygiene packages and attended hand-washing demonstrations supported by other grants. All of these assistance helped SWAPNO participants to combat the obstacles posed by COVID-19.
Rashida now hopes to see a better future ahead. From having a directionless life to a balanced life – she proves that she is not worthless and can be a valuable person for her family and community.
