Momena Begum nicknamed Hashu is a simple-hearted woman but straight forward in her manners and activities that has created an amazing life story of a successful entrepreneur in the community level. She started her small business from the gate of a well-known school situated in the Navy gate area of Chattagram city. Before starting her business, she used to work as a Quality Inspector in a garments factory under Youngngone Group (CEPZ) LTD. in Chattagram. She passed the S.S.C examination in 2000 from Muradnagar Gangorkoat High School, Comilla, and then came to visit Chattogram city. In the meantime, she started the job in the garments factory. In 2003, she got married to an employee of The Youngone group. She couldn’t pass in the H.S.C examination as she had to maintain her job and family. She gave birth to her 1st boy in 2004. Though she had been promoted to a “supervisor” position she had to leave her job as there was no relative near her family who could raise her child. Her father was a village doctor and her with her three sisters had been raised by her stepmother. Undoubtedly, she came from a poor family.
In 2004, the workaholic Momena Begum started to think about how to do something on her own to improve the quality of life for her and her family. They used to live in a rent house Crossing MPB Gate in Chattogram City. There, she noticed a regular congregate of women waiting at the gate of a school near her home. She targeted those waiting mother for her upcoming business and selling something which will make them happy.
Nuruzzaman, the then branch manager of the Ghashful Patenga branch, heard of the business initiative of Momena and made her a loan of fifteen thousand taka. With the loan, Momena started to sell the quality women’s garments, various baby items, and other essential products which she collected from the Teribazar wholesale market. Her generosity, simple-hearted nature, and honesty won the heart of the waiting guardians nearby Navy Colony that increased her sales at a surprising rate day by day.
Ghashful later gave her a loan of 30000 to 8 lacks Tk. With the loans and other assistance, she raised a handsome amount of capital.
While Akib, her eldest son had been growing up in the Navy School, her business took up a new dimension. In 2008, she set a room called ‘M.T. Fashion’, which earned a huge reputation in the area by the name of “Bhabhi Shop”. The sincere involvement in business and social bonding had been attracting more customers and thereby her income rapidly. She started to make a new plan to expand her business.
She set up a sewing machine in the shop and started to make her own production out of her previous experience gained previously as a garment worker. From Narayanganj she collected clothes and other export quality accessories to shape them in her own design that made her ‘M.T. Fashion’ a local brand name of the products including the clothing for women and girl children, various kinds of inner Garments items, cloth bags. In addition to selling the items in the newly set-up showrooms, she made a successful arrangement of the marketing of the products in different areas including the local shopping malls.
She gradually set more machines and appointed more staff to work at her production house besides developing her marketing network astonishingly. She brought women from low-income families, short-term garment workers, women hawkers, and even beggars under her marketing network to sell her products in different areas and markets.
Out of her social responsibility and commitment, her entrepreneurship started to establish familial and social dignity for the women in her business network. To increase the scope of the business she bought a piece of land in the Khajurtala area of Patenga police station.
Momena took the responsibility of the rest of her two sisters along with her stepmother who was divorced by her husband. With her support, her elder sister’s husband made a home in the city and she arranged her younger sister’s marriage.
The capacity for taking the right initiative made Momena develop her business at its peak. In 2015, she launched her factory near the Show-room that is being operated in full swing. At present, it has 5/6 auto seamless machines, four skilled craftsmen, two sharks, and two women workers. She is supplying products to various shopping malls beside the local market. The quality of the products of her factory maintains a good standard. The low sales price of the quality products is making different types of merchants to come and buy them from her factory. Momena has claimed that she sells BDT 5/1 lakh every month. She earns BDT 5/10 lacks per month excluding the expenditures of salaries and allowances of employees. Recently, she has joined the Chittagong Woman Chamber and Commerce as a member.
Momena has the future plan of producing quality Inner Garments products in the Bangladeshi market so that Bangladeshi women become interested in using domestic products willingly and with satisfaction, rather than using foreign products. The total review of her childhood, growth, and upbringing as a woman in Katana, at the grassroots level of society, demonstrates that she not only sought the path of income-earning but also left a sign of humanity in her own way. She is involved in various social welfare activities in the area.
Momena was not born with a spoon of gold. She grew up with many family conflicts and struggled to save her life with the other three lives of her family. Currently, her eldest son is studying in class eight and the girl is studying in the fourth grade. Spouses in the family are doing separate businesses with separate entities. Back at home, according to other moms, she took care of the kids and finished cooking. She said there is joy in family life, there is an achievement, there is also fatigue but there is no leisure. She enjoys her work, wants to achieve such joy for the rest of her life. She for her sincerity and integrity has been a symbol of progress in her family and her community with love and dignity.
