The Rana Plaza survivors are now faced with fund crunch while running small business they initiated with their compensation. A recent visit to some survivors’ residents at Savar revealed the fact. The Dhaka Tribune found that some survivors turned out to be small entrepreneurs instead of going to join the RMG factory again following the traumatic event of Rana Plaza collapse. Talking to several victims, it was revealed that the RMG workers started business with the fund they got from several sources, but now are facing fund shortage. A total of 50 Rana Plaza survivors including 44 female and 6 male received training on small business and entrepreneurship development conducted by the ActionAid Bangladesh. So far, 40 participants engaged themselves in self-employment, 30 of which received advanced skill training course on dress-making and tailoring, boutique, ti-die and screen-print. “The dream of educating my daughter was shattered when Rana Plaza building collapsed, leaving me in dark about the future,” Kohinoor Begum, a survivor of Rana Plaza disaster, told the Dhaka Tribune. “But after starting my small shop with the entrepreneurship training from the Action Aid, I have got back confidence and begun to dream about the future of my daughter,” said Kohinoor, who already established a small shop with Tk60,000. Kohinoor said if she had a refrigerator in her shop she could sell cold drink, pasteurised milk, ice cream and other frozen items. She wishes the government or the micro-credit lenders came forward with collateral free loans to help expand her business. Another entrepreneur Maleka echoed the same as Kohinoor. She said: “I have received training on block and boutiques and started working. I have revived an order of 500 scarfs but cannot buy raw materials due to fund shortage.” She called upon the government and the global buyers to come up with some sort of monetary support so that they could flourish their own business to beat poverty and hunger. Naisr Uddin, quality inspector of New Weave Garment housed in Rana Plaza, started small garment with eight machines and work for local market., He employed his fellow victims and needed more funds to add more machines to boost productivity. All the victims, who talked to the Dhaka Tribune are unwilling to do work under the roof of any factory as they feel unsafe. What they want now is to be self- employed, but are facing trouble in getting loans. According a survey conducted by the ActionAid Bangladesh, 59% survivors of the Rana Plaza disaster are intent on starting small business on their own with the support from others. Among the respondents, over 35% have plan to open small grocery shop and 9.8% are planning to open boutique business. The rest 2.2% are planing to find out suitable jobs and 11.6% want to find suitable jobs other than RMG factory. The survey was conducted over 2,297 workers of Rana Plaza. On 24 April 2013, Rana Plaza, an eight-story commercial building, collapsed in Savar, outskirt of the capital, killing 1,135 workers and injuring over 2,500 people.
