Successful culinary entrepreneurship course for girls in Bangladesh

In order to encourage Bangladeshi women to participate in the labour market, CINOP and partners have developed a culinary entrepreneurship course with and for Tommy Miah’s Hospitality Management Institute. The course is based on the needs of girls from rural communities.

In June 2022, together with our partner Consiglieri, we organised a 4-day workshop for TMHMI staff. During this workshop we discussed the suitability of the curriculum for girls from rural communities. In addition, we looked at whether it teaches the girls the entrepreneurial skills needed to start and maintain a small business. These were useful sessions.

Since the area around Sylhet has been ravaged by floods, we asked three female staff members from Sylhet to come to the TMHMI school in Dhaka and discuss the curriculum with their colleagues from Dhaka.
This turned out to be a fun exercise that asked the participants to keep empathising with a girl in a small Bangladesh village.
The staff in Dhaka turned out to be young and enterprising. Many of the culinary chefs had their own online businesses and a lot of expertise. After discussing the entrepreneurship curriculum, we discussed what the cooking course section should look like. So we redesigned it and we are one step closer to increasing the labour participation of Bangladeshi women.