StanChart, BRAC to provide entrepreneurship support for returnee migrant workers

Standard Chartered Bangladesh (SCB) and BRAC have announced the launch of a Covid-19 response initiative that will work with returnee migrant workers to ensure economic self-reliance through skills and entrepreneurship development.

The Standard Chartered Foundation is financing the two-year project titled “Covid-19 recovery: Entrepreneurship Training and Gainful Employment for Returnee Migrants Affected by Covid-19 in Bangladesh”, said a press release.

Under this project, the returnee migrants affected by Covid-19 will be supported with emergency arrival assistance, counselling, entrepreneurship training followed by in-kind financial assistance as business award money to start their new business, which will support their sustainable economic reintegration.

The project will also link beneficiaries with microfinance institutes (MFIs) to facilitate access to finance and provide emergency and psycho-social support, it said.

“Through harnessing the skills and knowledge, they have gained throughout their overseas careers and channelling it towards entrepreneurship and gainful employment opportunities, our remittance earners, will not only ensure their own economic self-reliance but also create more opportunities for the broader community, multiplying the recovery momentum at the root levels,” said Naser Ezaz Bijoy, chief executive officer of SCB.

The project will identify and trace beneficiaries through several sources, including the airport, community members, hotline and other referrals.

Three Reintegration Support Centres will be established under the project.

“Covid-19 left many migrants jobless with new learning where for all actors, government and non-government need to work together to support returnee migrants for their economic and social reintegration back into our society,” said Asif Saleh, executive director of BRAC.

Preference will be given to more vulnerable demographics, particularly women and youths aged between 18 and 35 years.

Beneficiaries will be identified from three districts - Dhaka, Chattogram and Cumilla having particular concentrations of returnee population focusing on localities heavily affected by the pandemic.

“The main focus is to support returnee migrant workers with entrepreneurship skills development and other support services for small-scale businesses that will change and improve the local economy," he added.