Approximately half of the population of Bangladesh is female. Women and girls are in need of a proper skill development education and training in various fields for self-reliance and employment. Therefore, HOPE’87 launched the STYLE-project in order to contribute to the empowerment of the beneficiaries and to facilitate the creation of new jobs and income-generating activities for young women.

The project aims to contribute to the empowerment and to the creation of new jobs and income generating activities for young women by providing demand-driven skills training in various technical professions in order to increase the working capacity and possible employability of unemployed women in Dhaka District. Furthermore, life skills and empowerment sessions have been arranged in order to directly respond to the challenges that women in Bangladesh have been facing during the COVID-19 pandemic by gaining market driven skills in order to improve their economic self-reliance. For this purpose, a fully equipped Women Skills Training Centre has been set up in Old Dhaka.

Target beneficiaries of the project are 240 girls and young women who want to gain market-driven skills in order to improve their economic self-reliance during the project period. During the last year,162 students have attended the courses, which include a basic computer course with spoken English, a tailoring course and a handicraft & block-batik course.