Oporajeo (Invincible) was setup after the Rana Plaza disaster on April 24th, 2013 to create job opportunities for some of the survivors as a rehabilitation initiative. It was inaugurated on June 24th, 2013 and started its operation on July 1st, 2013. Right after the disaster, planning and funds collection were initiated to start a rehabilitation program for the victims and survivors. Many drives were organized where direct donations, medical camps, reallocation programs, cattle distribution and different ways of income earning such as tea stalls, tailor shop equipments, ration distribution were provided to some of these victims. But these were unsuccessful in keeping the victims motivated towards a more permanent mode of living by earning a guaranteed monthly income. After some serious discussions and planning with teams, the survivors, and other experts from different fields a collective decision was made to setup a small factory that will produce bags made of jute and jute cotton to be sold in the local market at first which won’t require much skill migration from these workers but a little bit of training. This was a prototype model that could be a revolutionary concept for others to follow. Oporajeo was started by a group of ordinary citizens and donations from many both in the country and abroad who like every other person during that time wanted to help in all possible ways. Oporajeo started with 6 industrial sewing machines and 7 workers. At present, the factory is equipped with 21 machines and 23 workers. It is entirely run and operated by these survivors who produce different types of bags made from cotton and jute. A production manager, QA expert and R&D expert were recently hired to further improve the quality of these products to be marketed internationally and reach foreign markets. Oporajeo is completely owned by the workers. They are paid remunerations as per market rate. On top of that 50% of the profit is equally distributed among them. From the rest 50% of the profit, a percentage is utilized to support the workers’ children education and the rest amount is kept for different operational costs. Besides providing job opportunity, the factory setup is ensuring the workers’ children education. The children are admitted in local schools supported by the factory. Oporajeo also provides medical support to the workers. There are some workers who require long term physiotherapy. The workers take time off during the physiotherapy session and cover the hours on other time in the week. The workers also get free treatment as and when required. Overseeing all management, fund allocation, marketing, PR, purchases and expansion by many volunteering professionals and experts from different organizations and businesses this initiative has so far been successful due to all their collective hard work, dedication and planning. Future plans are to open up many such factories in different regions with these survivors for this model to work and owned by the workers themselves. Also in plans are to open an educational institution fully run and operated by this model for children of the survivors and any other workers in the locality that cannot afford to provide education to such children. This institution will also be responsible for running adult educational programs such as weekend programs and night school to help educate anyone who wants to gain a formal education. Training programs such as vocational training, worker rights, safety and women rights will be introduced in this institution. These are in planning stages at present to be implemented soon in the future.
