Rabeya is a 26 years old young lady and mother of a son is a highly skilled Kisa (Grass born in the Char-river island areas) basket weaver. Her uncle Nozir was the team leader of DEW Kisa basketry group based in the northern part of Bangladesh who died by cancer 7 years ago. After his untimely death his younger brother Abul took the group leadership who is the father of Rabeya.

Rabeya’s are three sisters and she is the eldest one got married when she was 16 years old. Her younger sister got married when she was 13, child marriage is a very common phenomenon in the areas because parents are getting reluctant if they find good husband for their daughters. Rokeya, her mother, father, sisters and neighbors all are inherited indigenous knowledge and skills on kisa basketry weaving. DEW Crafts provided them product development, design, quality compliance training including Fair trade promotion and market access for them since 2005.

Rokeys’s husband Sohan Gazi is working in a garment factory at Gazipur, now sometimes they are living in Gazipur with their only son Abdur Rahman (7) but when their group get big orders for kisa basket then Rokeya going back home to join their group to produce baskets because she loves to weaving baskets and she also needs income to support their family and for her son Abdur Rahman.

Rokey’s only dream is now to educate her son Abdur Rahman and for that they needs continuation of their work but unfortunately orders are not enough to work around the year to generate sufficient income to support their family and savings for his son’s education. But she is also happy to provide nutritious food, clothing for her son as well as to get some extend mobility, freedom and empowerment through her work.

Sometimes they are facing problems like irregular work orders, crises of raw materials due to natural disasters (Bangladesh is one of the worse victim of climate change), increase of transport, raw material cost and other essentials to continue their life and livelihoods.including climate change and adaptation) from the DEW Crafts, respect him.