Background. The Job Opportunities and Business Support (JOBS) program is aimed at creating sustainable employment by helping small, micro, and medium entrepreneurs grow their enterprises. JOBS helps develop opportunities in areas other than ready-made garments to help diversify the production and export base.

The approach depends heavily on identifying productive sectors with the potential to grow in export and domestic markets. JOBS seeks to identify entrepreneurs with the attitude and aptitude to move their businesses to the next level of growth. Assistance provided by JOBS includes such areas as: a) business management enhancements; b) introduction of improved production techniques and technologies; c) development of credible business and marketing plans; and d) participation in overseas technology transfer and marketing trade fairs. Firms receiving support have grown and added 5,000 jobs, with 80 percent of the positions having gone to women. This multi-year $12.1 million project is implemented by University Research Corporation International (URCI) at the University of Maryland

Success story. One successful JOBS entrepreneur is Dil Afsana Akhi, a Bangladeshi housewife who started making dresses as a hobby in 1994. Now an established entrepreneur, she used to sell dresses to friends, relatives and neighbors. As her clothes gained in popularity, her husband encouraged her to start a business and gave her $850 as capital in 1995.

She traded successfully from her house to local shops and consumers for eight years, until she decided to expand the business at the end of 2002 and established ‘Rang Dhanu’ (Rainbow), a garments, block-batik, and embroidery center in Khulna town, in the southern part of Bangladesh. She employed 20 full-time and 25 part-time staff and relocated the business from her home to a rented showroom in the commercial area.

During the last week of December 2003, Akhi participated in Entrepreneurship Development and Business Management (EDBM) Training, developed and provided by the JOBS Project.

By the end of the course she was skilled in a multitude of areas including business selection, market surveys, depreciation calculation, costing; all of which are required to maintain a business like Akhi's.

The training equipped her with the business knowledge and acumen to plan for diversification and expansion. She has since extended the business through opening two more showrooms creating an additional two full time and 25 part-time positions. After the training she has successfully expanded the business and her capital has increased from $3,500 to $8,600.

Akhi has used her newly developed expertise to become a lead buyer for 10 more enterprises in her areas, providing them with training, marketing assistance and advice. Her natural flair for innovative thinking was given a focus and direction by the training, which she has since capitalized on through an enhanced marketing strategy. As well as selling products from her showroom, she now sells to schools and colleges using on-site presentations, and supplies other showrooms to surrounding district towns.

The EDBM training provided Dil Afsana Akhi the confidence to make strategic business decisions for the future and the skills necessary to implement them. The result has been an outstanding success for her. Recently she acknowledged the contribution of the JOBS project to her success in her promotional brochure “Rang Danu” (Rainbow).

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Selected Activities

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