In March this year Emma Jewitt and Kim Mayman were awarded the Traidcraft staff places on the Bangladesh Meet the People Tour and visited Saidpur Enterprises in the north of Bangladesh. Saidpur Enterprises comprises both Action Bag and Eastern Screen Printers.

When Kim and I found out that our applications to go to Bangladesh had been successful it was like winning the lottery!

I had never travelled in a developing country before and having worked at Traidcraft for two years in supporter development, and having studied international development recently, I was really keen to see some of our projects in action.

The visit to Saidpur was one of our favourites. We travelled north from Dhaka (the capital city) on Bangladesh’s crazy road system to Saidpur. Saidpur is a noticeably poor area mostly made up of slums which is why Traidcraft’s work there is so important. We were greeted at Action Bag by Ghayasuddin who is the general manager and he gave us a short tour of the premises.

Action Bag is where they make some of our wonderful jute bags (jute is such an important crop in Bangladesh) and it was great to see some products that we recognised! The products being made in these pictures are for our autumn 2012 range.



The women looked comfortable and happy and the rooms were all well ventilated and cool.

We were then casually informed that some of the local school children were going to be coming in to meet us and it wasn’t until we saw hundreds of children streaming in that we realised what was going to happen.

Ghayasuddin explained that for the last five years Saidpur Enterprises had also been running a school uniform and bag distribution project. At the beginning of each year the school teachers and community leaders select the poorest children to receive free school uniforms and bags. 2% of all sales from Action Bag and ESP go towards funding this project, which started in 2007 with 200 children and has increased to 480 children this year. Employment opportunities are also provided locally for the people who make the uniforms. Today was the day when they were distributing the uniforms to nearly 500 children in the area and they wanted us to help.

We sat in a large yard covered by tarpaulin to help keep us cool and one by one the children came up to collect their bags, school uniforms and also a box of sweets. The mayor gave a speech and I was also asked to say a few words (which I doubt many people understood!) The children also took it in turns to come up and practice their English, they asked us our names, told us which class they read in and also told us their father’s name.



When we had finished the children were so excited that they changed straight into their uniforms and then came back so we could see them. They loved having their pictures taken and completely surrounded us asking us to take picture after picture and they laughed when we showed them their pictures on the camera.

Ghayasuddin explained to us how much this project is admired among the local community and what a difference it makes to the families who can’t afford school uniforms. It was so humbling to see what a huge difference something so simple as buying a few products could make.

Places are already beginning to fill up on our tour to Bangladesh next year. You can find more information by clicking here or you can call Lizzie or Paul on 0191 2651110 to check availability and to ask any questions about the trip.

Emma has been so inspired by the people she met in Bangladesh and seeing projects first-hand that she is planning to run for Traidcraft Exchange in the Great North Run in September.