A number of selected Japanese retail shops are set to start selling organic soaps made by underprivileged women in Bangladesh within the next few months.
Around 100 village women in Mymensingh district employed by Shapla Neer, a Japanese-funded non-governmental organisation, are producing export-quality soaps with locally-procured ingredients, Shapla Neer coordinator Nobutada Sugahara told New Age on Friday.
He said, ‘The village women have produced soaps using local ingredients like coconut oil, palm oil, lavender oil, and cinnamon oil and we are satisfied with the product quality.’
‘We are at the final stage of negotiations with a number of selected Japanese fashion outlets to sell these soaps under the brand name “She with Shapla Neer” and the first shipment is expected to be made in April or May,’ Sugahara said.
Bangladeshi village women are very good learners, remarked the Japanese development activist, adding that a chemist, a designer and a brand adviser of Japan had trained them in soap manufacturing.
At present, Japanese women do not like chemical soaps and organic soaps are in vogue over there, Sugahara said. So, Bangladesh is likely to earn a significant amount of foreign exchange by exporting the organic soaps to Japan, he added.
The Shapla Neer coordinator however said his organisation did not consider the project to be a moneymaking one; rather it was aimed at promoting fair trade and economic empowerment of the underprivileged women.
Shapla Neer has selected women deprived of education, job, and even adequate food as the soap-makers, Sugahara said. ‘Some of the women had even been forced to sell sex to earn a livelihood.’
‘“She with Shapla Neer” to be made by underprivileged women will be a fair-trade product and such products have much potentials in Japanese market,’ said Sugahara. ‘Customers there prefer to spend more on such products as it promotes humanitarian causes as well.’
