A camera in the hands of anyone could create magic, and that is exactly what was expected of these women factory workers in Bangladesh, who churn out thousands and thousands of pieces of clothing each day.
A creative initiative, taken up by an UK-based non-profit organisation Lensational to offer a creative touch to the mundane lives of these labourers, who work 12 to 16 hours a day, struggling hard to make both ends meet for themselves and their family, was aimed to introduce a fresh lease of life outside their grueling jobs.
Volunteers of this organisation have been providing free photography workshops to 35 women garment factory workers in Dhaka and Gazipur for the past more than one year, breaking the monotony in their lives. Now, they have been allowed to freely take photographs in and around their workplaces.
The strenuous work schedule of these women (there are at least 3 million factory workers in Bangladesh, the majority of whom are women) does not permit anything more than a short lunch break. These women have no time for chit-chat, not even time to look up and ease their tired eyes and hands. However, these women have found hope and scope for creativity in the midst of their tiresome and lonely life with these cameras, which they use to capture each other in their everyday life.
“…We want to change the perception that…their lives are not just churning out clothes that we wear,” said Bonnie Chiu, Lensational’s co-founder and CEO. “It’s not just being confined to a space. They also have their own stories as mothers, as daughters.”
“For them, photography is a way to overcome the language barriers, so [that] they can share these stories with the wider world. They don’t need to know how to read or write, but they can still share [their stories], because photography itself is a universal language,” Bonnie said on these women workers, most of whom are illiterate
Since its inception on International Women’s Day in 2013, Lensational has worked with 300 marginalised women in nine countries across the world, from street hawkers in Myanmar to foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong.
