Infolady- a change agent of the society

Batgirl patrols Gotham City; Manhattan depends on spider-girl; Themyscira has Wonder Woman and our Bangladesh has its own ‘Infolady’. An Infolady’s super power is information. Every moment she is serving her village using this power.  

I came across the term ‘Infolady’ (Bangla: ‘Tathyakalyani’) in 2013. The name instantly caught my attention. I came to know that there is a group of women who roam around on bicycles with a laptop, internet modem, a camera, a mobile phone etc. they go door to door in their villages and sell information. And this is how they are empowering themselves as well as their villages.     

 A social enterprise, Dnet coined the term ‘Infolady’ and invented a social entrepreneurship model envisaging women as change agents of the society. This model of info-preneurship for women has the multi-layered impacts on the lives of community people. Infoladies help marginalized citizens to overcome structural constraints and create opportunities for informed choice through access to information at the door step.

Shathi Akhtar, from Gaibandha, was one of the first Infoladies of the village, Dharabosha. She shared the experience of her journey as an Infolady. When Infolady was campaigning in Gaibandh, Shathi heard the miking one day and became interested. She went through the selection procedure and got selected. But her parents were against this new concept of Infolady model. Shathi was supposed to invest 45,000 Taka for the equipment. But she couldn’t arrange the money. Later, she convince her mother and borrowed 15,000 Taka from her and started working as an Infolady. She was kicked out of her house for going against her father and was forced to stay at her paternal aunt’s place for a week.

‘Initial 6 months were the toughest’- said Shathi. During that period, there was almost no income. The society did not accept this new concept of income generation. Moreover, the Infoladies had to go through hostility and verbal abuse every single day for the first 6 months. The elderly people of the village directly labeled Infoladies as ‘rotten women’. They were resistant to women riding bicycles. Men on the road used to taunt them. Shathi, along with 9 other Infoladies became frustrated. But they were determined to carry out the work.

At first the Infoladies used to earn 200 to 300 Taka per month. But now they earn about 12,000 to 16,000 a month. Slowly the view of the society changed. Villagers started contacting Infoladies for measuring blood pressure, testing blood sugar, determining blood group, testing pregnancy, clicking passport size photograph etc. Old women and men started taking the services of Infolady to contact their migrated sons through Skype. Students and young individuals sought help from Infoladies to browse internet. ‘The satisfaction level is so high that the villagers often pay double or triple the amount of the actual charge of the service’- Shathi explained.

Mobile lady is the predecessor to Infolady and it started its journey in 2004. In 2006, the piloting phase of Infolady programme had started. From 2011 to 2013, Infolady was scaled up through franchise model and in 2014, several new scaling up approaches have been initiated. “Currently 50 Infoladies are working in the field and they have served more than three hundred thousand citizens. Four hundred communities are getting the services of Infoladies and each community’s Benefit of Investment (BOI) is fifteen times the amount of the investment”- explained Mr. Forhad Uddin, Head of Impact and Research of Dnet.

“Through National Bank Limited, Bangladesh Bank has disbursed 100 million Taka to scale up the Infolady programme”- said Ms. Laura Mohiuddin, Head of Infolady Social Entrepreneurship Programme – ISEP. Her plan is to scale out fifteen hundred Infoladies by the end of 2016. She also mentioned, soon Infolady programme will be launched in all the districts.

Source:

Dnet

ISEP

Forhad Uddin, Head of Impact and Research of Dnet, Laura Mohiuddin

Head of Infolady Social Entrepreneurship Programme – ISEP

Shathi Akhtar, Infolady