MYMENSINGH, Bangladesh, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- "I joined this training so that I can do something and earn my own income to continue my education and help my family," said Munni Akter Shikha.
The housewife living in a rural village in Bangladesh's Mymensingh district, some 122 km north of Dhaka, told Xinhua the training courses are part of a cooperation project, which is funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and implemented by Chinese agriculture, animal husbandry and feed processing company New Hope and other consulting companies.
The project is intended to train rural women to improve climate resilience in poultry and fish farming.
The training courses were officially launched in late 2022, with the participants mainly from rural villages in Narsingdi and Mymensingh, where New Hope's poultry and aquaculture feed markets are based.
Large-scale training sessions began at the beginning of 2023, with two to four technical training courses held per week, each attended by 20 to 50 people.
Women farmers have shown great enthusiasm for the courses. Thousands of Bangladeshi women from poor families now see an opportunity to change their fate. Some beneficiaries recently told Xinhua that the prospect of a better life is like pleasant sunshine for them.
Shikha said young women like her, especially those who got married at a young age, should participate in such workshops so that they can become self-dependent through poultry farming.
The village woman said she is now in a position to help her husband and the whole family and save some money for her future dream of pursuing higher education abroad.
"I have a son and a daughter, and I want to educate them," another trainee Salma Akhtar said. "I learned how to raise chickens using scientific methods. So now I can earn more money by selling more eggs."
She also thanked the New Hope company, describing the training courses as a game changer for village women in the local area.
By late October, the 2024 training program has been completed, benefiting a total of 2,007 participants. Since its inception, the project has trained over 5,000 poultry and aquaculture women farmers.
Safifa Marjan, a trainer of this project, said Bangladesh ushers in a new era of women farmers development, thanks to the full support of the ADB and New Hope.
She said such trainings are designed for underprivileged farmers in rural villages, especially women farmers, in the South Asian country.
"They are responding very well to us. For this reason, we feel very privileged to work with them here," Marjan said.
"New Hope not only pursues self-development, but also seeks to foster growth in the markets and communities where we operate," said He Quanshui, regional president for New Hope Bangladesh, adding, "We are very glad and honored to provide opportunities and platforms to empower village women." ■