Dozens of “Info Ladies” bike into remote Bangladeshi villages with laptops and Internet connections, helping tens of thousands of people especially women get everything from government services to chats with distant loved ones.
It’s a vital service in a country where only 5 million of 152 million people have Internet access.
The Info Ladies project, created in 2008 by local development group D.Net and other community organizations, is modelled after a programme that helped make cellphones widespread in Bangladesh.Nearly 60 Info Ladies are working in 19 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts.
Info Lady Sathi Akhtar, who works in Begum’s and Dipa’s villages, said
she makes more at the job than she would as a school teacher. She said
that after making payments on her 120,000 taka loan and covering other
costs, she takes home an average of 10,000 takas a month.
“We are not only earning money, we are also contributing in empowering our women with information. That makes us happy.”
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