TARANGO (A Women’s Development Organization) is a non-profit, national level, voluntary development organization. TARANGO is one of the prominent social businesses that has introduced the fair trade approaches to the labor market in Bangladesh. Since its inception in 1989, the main vision of the organization is to bring women’s empowerment in Bangladeshi society. TARANGO has work experience in different fields of development including Women economic empowerment, Fair trade Handicrafts business, Donor funded Project implementation, Alternative business opportunities studies and Market research, Training Module & Materials Development, Small & Micro Enterprise development and capacity building of facilitators. TARANGO’s Business Model has been worked well even beyond Bangladesh in different NGOs in Nepal, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Vision:

Establishment of a just and poverty-free society through women’s empowerment.

Mission:

TARANGO is a voluntary non-government organization which dreams of and desires to contribute to the establishment of a just and poverty-free society by organizing and training the most disadvantaged women through its committed, dedicated and skilled workers. It further aims to make the women resourceful, skilled and production oriented by assisting them to develop their human potential and talents to promote leadership and entrepreneurship in order to take up the responsibilities of sustainable economic activities to establish a self-reliant and gender-balanced society.

Ethical Guidelines

• Establish a just poverty-free society through participatory and multi-purpose approaches.
• Empower the disadvantaged rural women working and sharing with them about the organizational activities through group works, meetings, seminars and symposium workshops etc. by the skilled and dedicated workforce.
• Establish women human rights and a gender-balanced society.
• Creation of employment opportunity and development of income-generating activities for women for their economic uplift through entrepreneurship training, handicrafts production and skill development training.
• Institution building of the rural disadvantaged women and empowers them towards self-sufficiency and sustainability.
• Promotion of local and international market facilities through creating strong networking.
• Establish various income-creating sources towards achieving self-reliance and sustainability.
• Develop systems for Monitoring and Evaluation, Human Resources Management, etc., for the prompt advancement of the organization.
• Work with the same group of women for their advancement through the programs of TARANGO.
• Phase-out from one area after 5-6 years leaving the responsibility with the people’s organization (beneficiaries).

Legal Status:

Registration number and date:

1. Social Welfare Registration No. DH-02563/91
2. FD Registration No. 784/93,
3. MRA, Certificate No- 01152-01809-00523, 22 Aug 2010
4. Factory Registration Number 22007/Dhaka, dated 12 Aug 2018

Working Areas:

Our working areas are Dinajpur, Barishal, Gopalgonj, Faridpur, Gazipur, Tangail, Cox’s Bazar, Bandarban, Lalmonirhat, and Dhaka districts.

Number of Staff: 135 (Male: 45 Female: 90)

Number of beneficiaries involved: 18,800

There are 27(Twenty-seven) members including-social workers, teachers, businessman etc in the General Body and out of those, 9 (nine) members are acting as an Executive Committee for policy making decision.

Principal Components of TARANGO

Since its inception of TARANGO in 1989, it is promoting the women’s status in Bangladesh to improve their socio-economic condition and to lead them to a rightful role in the development of the country through its various programs like- Handicrafts, Women Entrepreneurship Development, Village Savings & Loan Association, Savings & Micro Finance and initiate different development projects on Women Economic Empowerment.

Handicrafts:  Handicrafts Program is self-sufficient started at 1989. Our Handicraft program provides a sustainable livelihood as it is a supplementary form of income to their agricultural work, filling time between seedtime and harvest. Also enhancing the skills of women artisans on jute based craft making, jute dyeing, waist loom weaving, jute based craft, quality management of handicraft production process. Through our Handicraft programm we are promoting eco friendly handicraft products with a vision of using Fair Trade to eradicate poverty and improve the socio-economic condition of rural women in Bangladesh. We are renowned for our work in the market of diversified jute handicraft products, recycled and straw cards. Our aim is to extend our unique handicrafts products to a wider market across various countries in the world. Right now, more than 1,800 marginalized women are working for TARANGO. We are also guaranteed member of the World Fair-trade Organization (WFTO).

Women Entrepreneurship Development Program: The WEDP (Women Entrepreneurship Development Program) is one of the substantial programs of TARANGO, which has started in 1997. This program aims at building the competency among rural disadvantaged women in starting and managing their own small business to earn additional income. TARANGO provides training to those that are non-literate on how to support and manage their business. As a result the women are able to break out of the traditional gender roles and reduce some of the stigmas that exist within Bangladeshi society. In cooperation with GTZ (German Technical Cooperation) TARANGO developed an Entrepreneurship Development Program for Semi & non-literate Entrepreneurs.

Our Social Empowerment program runs through all of the core development projects. This pictorial module was developed on current and social situation analysis. The women are trained on issues relating to gender, human rights, leadership skills, trafficking, discrimination, violence against dowry, education and student support, water and sanitation and health and family welfare.

Microfinance: Microfinance is another important program of TARANGO started from 1998. Presently the program is working with 3486 beneficiaries at 4 branches to providing support of micro credit.

Village Savings and Loan Association: This is a new model – Village Savings and Loan Association - which delivers a savings-direct approach based in the community. The program tends to serve the poor who may not have full time business. This VSLA approach is for the first time in Bangladesh piloted by TARANGO in partnership with CLP-DFID. TARANGO is working in different development fields and also providing technical support to other INGOs and NGOs

 Development projects of TARANGO 

• Promotion of Bandarban’s Agro Based Products –Organic in two unions (Sadar and Kuhalong), Bandarban Sadar, Bandarban Hill District, Supported by: Jute Team, Germany
• Poverty reduction and empowerment of rural poor women in the Lalmonirhat district funded by Bridge of Light, Germany
• An Inclusive Approach to Empowering Working Children Project funded by World Vision Bangladesh
• Girls Club- Addressing Challenges and Expanding Opportunities funded by Australian Government
• Safe Home and Day Care Center at Mirpur funded by AIDA, Spain & TARANGO own fund
• Mother and child health care program at Kadambari, Agaoiljara, Barisal, Funded by Ms. Sheenag Day, Masion Bengal, UK, Ms. Ruth Zumbhul, Switzerland and Tarango Own Fund
• Student support program

 Membership/ Affiliation

• ECOTA - National Fair Trade Network of Bangladesh
• World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO), ID No # 643 from June’09
• Bangla Craft-National Handicraft Producers and Exporters Association
• Credit and Development Forum (CDF)
• Polli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF)

 Award:

• “Best Women Exporter of Diversified Jute Products” award received  from Honorable Agriculture Minister Dr. Abdur Razzaque on the occasion of National Jute Day, 06^th March 2022

• Best Women Entrepreneurship award for the year 2019 for exporting aesthetic eco-friendly diversified jute products all over the world. Jute Minister Mr. Golam Dastagir Gazi awarded memento on 6th March 2020 at the ceremony of National Jute Day 2020.  

• Best Women Entrepreneur 2018 for the export of diversified jute products at the ceremony of National Jute Day 2019 and at the presence of the Honorable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
• Kirtimoti Shammanona Award 2018: Ms. Kohinoor Yeasmin, CEO TARANGO has also won the prestigious Kirtimoti Shammanona Award 2018 in the category of Women Entrepreneurship Development, sponsored by Square Group..
• SME Excellence award 2019, sponsorced by Channel I
• Prestigious “Bangabandhu National Agriculture Award 1421 and 1422” for using environment friendly technology in organic firming in Bandarban with indigenous community
• Inspiring Female Entrepreneur award 2017 during an event of Women In Leadership, an initiative of the Bangladesh Brand Forum
• Best Jute diversified product-2007-08 award by JDPC (Jute Diversification Promotion Corporation), Ministry of Jute & Textiles.

 Aim of TARANGO in near future:

• Further expansion of Handicraft Market in home and abroad.
• Initiate different projects for Livelihood Development and Economic Empowerment.
• Explore Business education for Economic empowerment in home and abroad specially for non and semiliterate
• Explore VSL approach for won managed Savings and Loan Associations.

Work experience with other organizations:

TARANGO has been working with other development organizations at home and abroad, such as, GiZ, CARE Afghanistan, IRC Afghanistan, MARCY Crops Afghanistan, ILO Dhaka, CDMP/UNDP, CLP/DFID Dhaka, UKAid, CONCERN-Bangladesh, Winrock, AIDA-SPAIN, AECID SPAIN, TRAIDCRAFT Exchange Bangladesh, World Vision, Bangladesh, Licht Brucke, Germany, Bridge of Light, TFO Canada, SheTrades & Australian Government.

Contact Person & Address:

Ms. Kohinoor Yeasmin, Chief Executive Officer 

Or

U Thein Maung, Director

Address: TARANGO, 282/5, 1^st Colony, Mazar Road, Mirpur-1, Dhaka-1216, Bangladesh

Phone: +8802 48040914 & +8802 48038061 Email: wedptar@yahoo.com , info@tarango-bd.org

www.tarango.org