If you just believe it, there's nothing to it

She provides for education of not just one, but three of her siblings. Her husband found financial stability with the drugstore she had bought for him.

To many people, what Afsana Mimi has achieved as a woman with a seven-year-old daughter and a high school education, is an amazing success story.

And this strong-willed woman from Khulna's Aronghata did all this with her job as a driver of motor vehicles. 

Afsana's present employer is Bangladesh Election Commission (EC) where no other woman has worked as a professional driver before. 

Her life was not this glittery when she and her husband moved to Dhaka after getting married -- soon after her SSC exams in 2004.

Back then the low-income job of her husband was not enough for even two of them. Finding it difficult to survive in the city, the couple returned home where she got a job at Adolescent Development Programme (ADP) of Brac while her husband found work at a drugstore.

The turning point in her life came in 2012 when Anwar Hossain, area manager of Brac in Khulna, advised her to take a driving course offered by Brac.  

Encouraged by her employer, Afsana approached her mother for advice. Her mother was initially upset as she was not a proponent of women driving motor cars, but her father and her husband stood by her. Afsana's mother finally agreed and Afsana went on to get her training at Brac in Dhaka. “I am successful because of the support I get from my husband.”

After getting a driving license, she joined Brac Bank in Dhaka the same year. Two years later she joined Unicef in Khulna where she worked till April 2015. In May 2016, she passed the test for a driver position in the EC's Dhaka office. She was transferred to Khulna in September.

Since the profession of driving is relatively new for women, only 500 in the country, Afsana has to encounter awkward situations on the road every once in a while.   

“I was driving down the road one day in Ashashuni of Satkhira during my days at Unicef. A driver of a three-wheeler ran into a roadside shop with his vehicle while staring at me,” Afsana said with chuckles. “Thankfully, no one was hurt.”

Despite getting strange look and sometimes criticism, especially from the the elderly, Afsana holds a positive and professional attitude. “I often hear comments passed at me. Some of them sometimes appreciate my work too. I really enjoy all this as I truly love my job.”

“Most interestingly, my mother now says she feels proud of me after seeing articles on me in different papers,” said a glowing Afsana.

There are around 15,000 female drivers in the country and over 500 of them are professional drivers.