On the 19th April, 2015, SNV Netherlands Development Organization arranged a dissemination seminar at BGMEA conference room. Several NGOs, private sector, service providers, buyers, RMG factory owners and management were present at the seminar.
Mr. Paul Stevens, Country Director, SNV Bangladesh inaugurated the seminar. “Betterment of the lives of the low-income population is what we all want. But, there’s a huge gap in our communication and therefore, we haven’t been able to make a big enough impact.Working with Women project not only seeks for sustainability, but also facilitates the platform for sharing the experience we have gained in order to create a better solution” he added.
Ms Fartheeba Rahat Khan, Team Leader, Working with Women Project, then, introduced the seminar to all the participants. “The objective of today’s seminar is to keep all the stakeholders informed of the SRHR scenario in the factories, as well as provide updates on what WwW project is doing for the betterment of the current condition.”
Mr. Rubaiyath Sarwar, Managing Director, Innovision Consulting Ltd.presented SNV’s Value Chain Analysis report from the perspective of ensuring SRHR for the RMG workers. Mr. Belal Hossain, Associate Professor & Chairman, Department of Population Science, University of Dhaka later presented a study on Priority Health Needs of the female RMG workers.

Mr. Reaz-bin-Mahmood, Vice President, BGMEA shared remarks from BGMEA. “I am happy to see the recent initiatives of NGOs. SNV Bangladesh’s Value Chain Analysis report is fascinating and I truly learnt some issues I never knew of. As stated before, this project can help us improve the lives of our workers, as well as, help us grow faster with increased productivity of the workers. BGMEA looks forward to the success of the project.”

The Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of the RMG workers is yet to be seen as a critical area of improvement by the authority. SNV Bangladesh’s Working with Women project hopes to shed some light to the issue and make the solutions sustainable so that all the other factories willingly adopt the project in future.