Hathay Bunano ps

Background

Hathay Bunano Proshikhan Society (Hathay Bunano) is a social enterprise, aiming to create flexible employment opportunities for women in rural Bangladesh while generating returns comparable to a for-profit enterprise. Its focus is children's products aimed at infants and children 0-6 years old. Founded in 2005 with a personal investment of only $500, Hathay Bunano today employs 3500 women across a network of 32 rural co-operatives, sells toys in the US, UK, Australia, Europe and Bangladesh and generates sufficient returns to be self-sustaining. While the company is a long way from its vision of eradicating poverty while generating sustainable returns, its 'proof of concept' has been extremely successful. By leveraging lower labour costs and flexible manufacturing in a niche market (hand made children's products), Hathay Bunano is today a textbook example of a social enterprise creating sustainable rural employment while generating significant returns. The company is now at the precipice of exponential growth. The strong order backlog, the ability to potentially partner with leading local and international distributors of retail products, and launch its proprietary brand 'Pebble' makes 2009 an exciting year for the management team.

People

Samantha Morshed, is the founder of Hathay Bunano. Samantha's interest in social enterprise started in 2004 with a basic question 'how do you create sustainable employment without the debt or radical change in lifestyle for rural women?'. What started out as a question and a personal initial investment of $500, three years later has evolved into a thriving social enterprise. Samantha was recognized in the 2009 New Years Honours List with an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) from the Queen of England for her services in creating rural employment and is now increasingly promoting an alternate path to poverty alleviation - social entrepreneurship.

Golam Morshed, is the Chairman of Hathay Bunano. He is a British Bangladeshi, with an MA in History from Dhaka University. His understanding of the culture, people and rural way of life in Bangladesh has enabled Hathay Bunano to successfully and rapidly set up rural production centres in many varied locations.

Fair Trade

HBPS are a member of the Ecota Fair Trade Forum and follow all the principles of Fair Trade. In addition we are working towards SA8000 certification for our rural centres to provide additional compliance level guarantees to our customers.