One TVET Training Helped Shahin Build a New Future in Khulna

Shahin was four when his father died. From that day, his mother carried the family alone, selling fuel wood under the sun and rain to keep her three children fed and in school.

By the time Shahin reached his second year of honors at Haji Mohammad Mohosin College, the weight of that sacrifice had become unbearable. Every semester brought new fees. Every fee meant his mother worked longer.

"As I grew older," Shahin recalls, "I could see my mother getting weaker. Managing my exam fees was always a struggle for her. I felt guilty every day, like I was adding burden to her."

So he left college and went looking for work. But the market had no place for him. No capital, no training, no way in. Rejection followed rejection until hope thinned out completely.

"Day by day, I was losing hope," he says. "I wanted to do something for my mother, but I couldn't find a way. I felt like I was failing my family."

At 24, with few options left, Shahin joined a Technical and Vocational Education and Training programme running in his area by world vision bangladesh, spending two months learning basic computer skills, outsourcing, and graphics design. It was the first opportunity in years that asked for effort and attention rather than money he didn't have.

He found he was good at design. A local printing shop hired him at 10,000 BDT a month, his first real income. When the shop shut down three months later, the old fear crept back in. But this time he had something to hold on to: a certificate, a portfolio of work, proof that he could do the job. He went looking again, and a CNC Design House took him on, preparing designs for wooden materials, at 15,000 BDT a month.

Now Shahin supports his mother without the guilt that once followed him everywhere. He saves 1,000 BDT every month toward a CNC machine of his own, roughly 10 lakh BDT, the seed of a workshop he plans to build in her name.

Shahin is not alone. Through the Khulna Shohor Area Programme-1 of worldvision bangladesh, 111 young people, 33 boys and 78 girls, including 23 persons with disabilities, have gone through the same TVET training. Once vulnerable and unsure of what their future held, they now carry practical skills, real employment prospects, and a confidence they didn't have before.

Written By, Tasmia Farhana, Coordinator - Field Communications, WorldVisionBangladesh