Need house help? Bharasa Institute comes to aid you
The service is free of cost for both employers and employees
Finding house help in metropolitan areas, especially in capital Dhaka – who would do the job well and last at it – appears to be a perennial problem. Bharasa Institute, an initiative of the Anwara-Shawket Trust, has stepped in to address the issue by providing trained maids across the country.
Recruiting one would be simple: just an email or phone call to the institute.
What is more, Bharasa – which means "trust" in Bangla – will not charge either the employers for finding them maids or the domestic workers for the training the institute will provide them with.
"I have come up with the institute after facing the problem myself, and decided to run the service free of cost," Anjuman Aziz Khan, chairperson of Anwara-Shawket Trust and also the company director of Summit Power International, told the inauguration of the institution in Dhaka Wednesday.
Anjuman Aziz Khan said as the number of working parents, particularly working mothers, rises in Bangladesh, so does the demand for professional housekeeping, elderly care, and child care services.
Referring to Bangladesh's unemployment rate, she said families require qualified and skilled housekeeping and child care service providers, which opens up career opportunities for the millions of semi-educated youths who can be fully equipped with the required skill sets through appropriate and practical training.
The programme was told that the training curricula will prioritise enabling the trained professionals to meet the requirements and gain trust and confidence of their employing families. The curricula will include a training institute, socio-human incubation labs to complement experimentations, classroom training, and practical demonstrations.
The institute has already opened an office in Dhaka and its operations will begin soon.
Abir Mazumder, one of the organisers, said the institute has started its journey with an initial five-year plan, and about 700 people from 100 families will be trained every year.
Mira Mitra, principal investigator at Bharasa Institute, told the inauguration that there are now about 30 lakh domestic workers across the country. But the demand is much higher as about 50% of the households in cities have both husbands and wives engaged in jobs. There is no alternative to domestic workers to manage these families.
Monira Emdad, founder of Tangail Saree Kutir, joined the programme as the chief guest.