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and pictures of some of the infected trees and
leaves. Back at the center, she checked the website
www.ruralinfo.bd.com, designed by GPCIC, for
a solution. From the web, the manager found that
Voxosofer and Admier spray can kill the insects,
thereby helping the
Boroi
trees to grow. Having
been advised by Mrs Toslim about this remedy,
Mrs. Aman acted accordingly. A few weeks later
Mrs. Aman visited the GPCIC and told the man-
ager that her trees were in good shape and healthy
because of timely action. Mrs. Aman said “this
year I will sell lots of
Boroi
and make good profit”
and has improved her livelihood significantly from
selling the Boroi berries.
much appreciated by her regular customers and
through word-of-mouth she got many customers
for her dresses. While she gained confidence and
improved her economic situation she repaid the
loan to the local NGO. Now she has a reputation
that she has some unique designs in that area and
she has also extended her line to include children's
wear. Though she works in a limited scale, she
is thinking about employing an assistant to en-
able her to meet orders in a timely manner. She
visits the GPCIC regularly to search the Internet
for new ideas for her dresses. She has a dream
that someday she will have her own collection
displayed on the Internet and people will order
from there. She has also achieved much social
recognition and economic independence. Now
she can give her children education without the
help of others and can meet her own requirements.
She feels more empowered when she sees herself
as an independent individual.
Story 3: Changes of Female's
Socio-Economic Life
Married at the age of 17, Kulsum, is a 33 year old
divorced woman, with two daughters, both born
within five years of her marriage, Her husband
left her two years after the birth of their second
daughter, as a result of her not giving birth to a
son. After getting divorced she stayed with her
brother's family, obviously with much shame, as
it is very humiliating for women to get divorced
in the rural Bangladeshi context. Her brother
earned less than $80 a month and also had to feed
his own family of five. Kulsum learned tailoring
skills under the local Youth Ministry, Government
of Bangladesh's project
jubounnoun odihidopotor
(youth development program). She also took loan
from a local NGO and bought a sewing machine
to start earning her own income. Her business
was moderate.
One day she heard about the GPCIC and the
Internet. She went to the center and asked the
manger how Internet can help her to improve her
business. Mrs. Toslim helped her by searching for
images of different types of
kurtas
(traditional
dresses for women in Bangladesh) on Google
and showed her. She got some ideas about pat-
terns and colours and experimented with making
some
kurtas
on her own. Her collection was very
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE
RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
This research is explorative in nature; hence an
interpretive research methodology was suitable.
But while the limited scale and scope of the study
gave insights into some women's perceptions
about their livelihood improvements, it did not
manage to provide a wider understanding of the
socio-economic impact of the two projects. In
order to do this, the study has to move from the
exploratory stage into a larger scale study. Using
the GPCIC and VP projects as examples, the aim
of this research was to highlight some impacts
of ICT on rural women's lives at an individual
level. With the focus on women as operators of
VP franchises and users of GPCIC's services, we
have illustrated how socio-economic progress
is defined and perceived by the women, whose
stories we included in this chapter. The benefits
identified by these women are consistent with the
work of other researchers in this area, who have
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