In Digreer Char, a small village in northern Bangladesh, people once knew Afroza Khatun as a woman who went house to house doing domestic work just to keep her family fed. Today, they know her differently, as the owner of the poultry shop in the local market, trusted by every household nearby, and someone who now provides a job to another person in her village.

At 37, Afroza is a divorced mother of two, solely responsible for her family of four. After her husband left, she earned only about BDT 3,000–3,500 (USD 25–30) a month as a domestic worker. Some days, even one proper meal was a struggle, and her children's school fees were never certain. For a divorced woman in a village setting, this kind of hardship carries a double weight, not just financial, but social. It often comes with pity, sometimes judgment, rarely respect.

That began to change when Afroza joined SWAPNO, a livelihoods project that helps vulnerable women build sustainable income. Through paid work maintaining public infrastructure, she earned a regular wage for the first time, something she could actually plan her life around. 

Instead of spending it all, she saved small amounts through a community savings group set up by the project, building the seed money for a small poultry business beside her home. SWAPNO also trained her in raising chickens, how to source healthy chicks, care for them properly, and avoid losses, and later gave her a grant of about BDT 40,000 (USD 330) to help her start a proper business.