It is 8 AM on a sun-drenched Monday morning and the streets of Dhaka city are packed with commuters. The narrow alleyways of Shobujbag are crowded with people rushing to work and in the broken down building next to Kohinoor Begum's house, 40 women of varying ages have gathered together to change their lives.

Shobujbag’s Uttar Mugda Village Organisation (VO) was formed in 1997. BRAC Health Programme Organiser (PO) Shondhya Rani Sikdar was one of the first members of the team that organised women of the Shobujbag slums together. She was a Microfinance Programme Organiser back then and along with her team members, conducted surveys that pinpointed potential microfinance candidates in Shobujbag Thana and then went door to door introducing the BRAC development programme to the target group.

The group that meets at Shobhanetri (group leader) Kohinoor's house is one of several VOs which were formed in the Shobujbag Thana. The women that meet there every Monday represent a large cross-section of Dhaka city's population. Most of their husbands are small traders or rickshaw pullers. Living with large families in crowded slums, making ends meet is a daily struggle. The opportunity to take loans towards starting a small business or improving a current one is only made possible by the few NGOs that dare to work in the uncertain urban slum environment. With BRAC, however, the opportunities don't stop with microfinance.

PO Shondhya Rani had been inspired as a child by the country-wide oral saline campaign BRAC had undertaken in the 80s. Wanting to work for the many underprivileged families in the country, she joined BRAC straight out of college. In 1998, she underwent 3 months of intensive training to become a Health Programme Organizer. Now the area of Uttar Mugda in Shobujbag Thana is under her care and it is where she conducts regular Health Forums. The people of Uttar Mugda now know her as Shondhya didi (older sister) and are quick to seek her advice on any health issue. The Ante and Post Natal Clinics she runs for the pregnant women in the area let her into the lives and homes of many of the area's young women and she uses that opportunity to make them more aware of health, nutrition, hygiene and sanitation issues.

One of Shondhya's current participants in the Ante Natal Clinic (ANC) is Nili Begum. Already in her second year as a VO member, Nili is nearly 9 months into her second pregnancy and has already had three checkups by Shondhya. With her first micro loan, Nili helped her husband Munsur Ali buy the rickshaw he had been driving on lease and when the family's income improved, they decided together to have their second child. Unlike most women in her area, however, Nili wants to have her second baby in a hospital – and not just any hospital, but the new Maternity Centre that is being set up in the area by BRAC.

The Centre will be one of several in Dhaka, funded by the Health wing of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In December of 2005, on their day trip to Bangladesh, Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft Corporation, and wife Melinda, stopped at the house of Kohinoor Begum of Shobujbag to watch a BRAC Microfinance Programme VO meeting. They spent a little more than an hour talking to Kohinoor and her fellow members and Melinda went inside the house to observe Shondhya conducting her weekly ANC.

The novelty and excitement of hosting the world's wealthiest couple in her home has all but worn off for Kohinoor, she is now busy building up the tailoring business she started with her BRAC loan. Her husband, a CNG Taxi driver, fell ill and was unable to work for several months. The family of five depended solely on the money Kohinoor earned sewing women's garments for people living in the neighbourhood. Her business was generated by word of mouth and as a result her income was hardly steady. Now that husband Chunnu Mia is well again, Kohinoor plans to take bigger loans to buy a CNG Taxi that he may drive. She has had several discussions with the people at the local BRAC office about the best way to proceed and plans to ask the local Area Manager for advice.

Rumi Yasmin is the Area Manager for Shobujbag and the Uttar Mugda VO is just one of her many responsibilities. In the six years that Rumi has been working in the area, she has dealt with hundreds of people, but the effort she put in to get to know each and every one of her members and their families has earned her the trust and respect of the community. When Rumi first joined BRAC, she was intrigued by the initiatives centred around women and finds satisfaction in working as a medium through which BRAC helps them.

Rumi often attends VO meetings to supervise the Microfinance Programme Officers performing the collection, which also provides a good opportunity to talk to the members, discuss pressing issues (such as TB or AIDS) and learn their opinions. Today, as she walks in, several women are buying BRAC salt from Kohinoor, and several more are asking for the water purification tablets she has volunteered to distribute for free.

Sitting in the front row is Monowara Begum, a member of the VO since its formation 1997. She took loans to start a business of selling saris door to door, but because of the time and effort it required to raise her three boys and look after the household, her work suffered, so now she runs a paper-bag making business out of her home and enlists the help of her two sons after they get home from school. Monowara saves as much money as she can every week as she dreams of sending her sons to college someday.

Behind Monowara sits a cheerful Hasna Begum. Her smile is somewhat famous, captured on the leaflet promoting BRAC's Tuberculosis Programme. While her husband drives a rickshaw, Hasna works as a BRAC Health Volunteer to supplement the income for her 5 member family. Besides selling drugs for common illnesses such as fever and cold, she is also learning to conduct the weekly health forums with Shondhya. While the money she earns selling her medicine door to door is only a supplementary income, Hasna insists that she volunteers because of the opportunity it provides her to do something for her neighbours. There is also the respect she gets from the community because of her position, though that too was hard earned. Twelve years before she moved to Dhaka city, Hasna was a BRAC Health Volunteer in her village in Mymensingh. But the time and place were such that she faced great opposition from her community when she took up the work, with everyone insisting she was going to lose her religion and her values by participating in the Health Programme training and activities. Overcoming the odds there, Hasna now has the confidence to face anything, and she does so with the famous smile on her face.

One of the activities of the Health Programme that has been greatly welcomed in the Shobujbag area is the Tuberculosis Directly Observed Therapy, Short Course (DOTS). As a Health Volunteer, Hasna is at the forefront of the programme, working to not only identify patients but also administering the daily dosage of medicine at her house. Most of Hasna's TB patients are neighbours like Shefali Begum, for whom the 2 minute walk to Hasna's house is cheaper and much more convenient than taking a rickshaw all the way to the nearest government health facility.

Next to Hasna at the meeting is Tahmina, one of the younger members of the group. Her 6 year old daughter Tamanna is her pride and joy. A little more than a year ago Tamanna contracted dengue fever and her treatment cost their family more than 95,000 takas. At that time both Tahmina and her husband Yunus were working, Tahmina as a security guard at a foreign company headquarters and Yunus running their own grocery store. Tamanna's illness caused Tahmina to quit her job and Yunus to sell the shop - the family fell into financial ruin. It has been a year since Tahmina joined BRAC. With her loan, she has started a door-to-door sari selling business which Yunus helps manage. Today she wants to talk to Rumi apa about getting a bigger loan. Tamanna is also old enough for school. Tahmina, like many of the other mothers of young children in the group, would like to see a BRAC primary school opening nearby. According to them, the teachers in the schools in the area don't give children enough attention, and the parents are frequently hassled for bribes.

The women of the Uttar Mugda VO are very vocal. When Rumi sits down to talk to them, they are not reserved about stating their problems and making their needs heard. Together, they talk about forming a group which will scout out possible locations for a BRAC school and Rumi explains the criteria to them. Later she will meet with several of the members individually to advise them on their businesses. This is the part of her job that Rumi loves best. Here, amidst the chatter of the women as they deposit their weekly savings, pay their loan instalments and discuss their children's future, the change taking place is palpable.