Project Attorokkha: Empowerment with a punch

Zaiba Tahyya is engrossed watching the next phase of her brainchild, Project Attorokkha, a self-defense training program for women from low-income background, a project of Zaiba's own Female Empowerment Movement (FEM). She seems almost like an unassuming, modern day version of television's Daenerys Targaryen minus the temperament and dragons but with the same zeal when seen overseeing the training of an “army” in the making. The second phase of Project Attorokkha is taking place in the capital city's Rayerbazaar, Korail and Shattola. The work so far seems to be tremendous.

Four participants out of the 16 from the first phase of the project are teaching around 40 girls in their communities the importance of self defense along with basic self defense skills. Many of the ones in the first phase had gone on to gain employment in the security sector owing to their newly learnt prowess. This was like a passing of the torch ceremony but one packed with a lot more punch.

When queried why Zaiba had taken this particular approach, her answer was simple and one that seemed to address a question everyone forgot to ask. “Years of research on working with violence against women, I only saw awareness campaigns on what happened but never any preventive measures. Women were mentally empowered but lacked physical empowerment which is important for mobility within their community,” she said.

FEM began in early 2016. Project Attorokha was one of its first projects. The project sought to train women from vulnerable classes the basics of self-defense. These girls would then be offered employment opportunity in the security sector. The job would be the first time many of them had enjoyed job security while having the knowledge that they no longer had to be worried about not being able to physically defend themselves. 

Phase II of this noble and novel initiative is taking place in Shokhi (a project by Marie Stopes, We Can, Bangladesh Women's Health Coalition, Bangladesh Legal Aid Services Trust and Embassy of Kingdom of Netherlands) hubs across Dhaka. The first hub and class started in Rayerbazaar’s Shokhi hub. The participants present are aged between 10-16 years and will be taught the importance of strength, self defense and how to protect themselves in difficult situations. The classes are to be monitored by the previous black belt instructor, S Islam Shuvo of Bangladesh Karate Federation every week.