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It depends on what you mean by this.
After 22 years, no one of the Cooperative Women of Bhabarpara can be considered
rich, although they succeeded in buying some land, in rebuilding their
houses, in sending their children to school up to graduation, in buying
cows for their husbands.
No rich woman would go on doing a job so hard as working with jute, making
plait with it, sewing the plait in different shapes, etc.
But if you think that a woman (who never went to school, who at 16 is
out of her second marriage and is considered a burden to her father and
mother) is elected chair-person of the Women Cooperative Society of Bhabarpara
and takes active part in all the decision making, as preparation of the
prices, quality control, accounting, storage and packing, . . . perhaps
you would say that yes, in a way she had risen from poverty.
And if you see that she is not a unique exception, that many members of
the women's group share the same attitude; if you see that they are not
shied away by the various buyers who come to visit them, but they can
answer and make their points even though they don't know English; if you
see that the "rulers" of the village have to take account of them; . .
. well, in a way they had risen from poverty.
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