Kulsuma Begum, BHH ID- 583547100028 and dwelling in Belagawn village of Juri Upazila in Moulvibazar, is a self-made woman whose husband, a farmer, can barely support the four-member family with his little income. In spite of destitution, this couple have somehow managed to continue the study of their two school going children, one boy and one girl, studying at 5th and 8th grade respectively. As a housewife, Kulsuma has nothing to do but cultivating vegetables in a small piece of land with a view to contributing the family income. But her restless effort can yield in a miniscule result because of using traditional cultivation techniques.
A drastic change has been triggered from 2017 when Kulsuma has become a beneficiary of SUCHANA project and came to know about improved horticulture mechanisms from the capacity building events conducted by the project and received seeds. Besides improved cultivating practices, she has learned about health, nutrition and hygiene related issues from different trainings arranged by the project in her village. Most importantly, she has received training and support to rear poultry in her homestead.
Eventually, Kulsuma has started cultivating vegetables e.g. Ladies finger, potato, brinzel, cucumber, carrot etc. within her home garden and rearing chicken and duck by employing the learnings from SUCHANA such as using climate resilient technology. Gradually, the number of poultry birds have been multiplied. Moreover, she has started harvesting a lot of vegetables in comparison to the previous years. As she has learned the need of taking diversified and nutritious food on daily basis, she has started maintaining this strictly. She has been able to manage nutritious daily intake from his homegrown vegetables and poultry products. Notably, she sells the surplus of her production to the local market to boost her family income.
Most interestingly, as a model farmer of her community she facilitate the other farmers to replicate her learnings and improved practices.
Additionally, she is a regular producer of vermi-compost on her garden by getting help from the project. She has started composting the garbage to fertilizer and using that to her garden and sells the excess to other farmers. Last month, she sells vermi-compost worthy of 500 BDT.
Kulsuma has a habit of saving money so that she can use those in hard times. She is also an active member of SUCHANA woman VSLA team and deposits money there on regular basis.
“SUCHANA has made me accustomed with so many good habits and changed my way of thinking and living. I have a plan to of increase the number of chickens I in a large scale,” Said Kulsuma.
