20th June 2015

Kahiniwalla visit Cox’s Bazar

We were delighted this week to welcome Austin Miller, one of the co-founders of Kahiniwalla, back to Bangladesh.    Austin is not new to Bangladesh and lived in Dhaka for a number of years.  In fact two of his three boys were born in Bangladesh.   We were delighted when Austin returned to the US in 2011 and expressed his interest to represent Pebble in the US and knew at that time that it would be a great step forward for Pebble.

 

Image: Austin from Kahiniwalla with the artisans in Cox’s Bazar

So this week, he returned with his eldest son, Jensen, to visit a country that is still very much a part of his heart and to go out and about seeing the Hathay Bunano centres.    His first trip this time was to Cox’s Bazar where we have started a number of new centres in the past year with the cooperation of Winrock International under the CREL programme, funded by USAID.    Of course, its great for anyone to visit Cox’s Bazar because it is a beautiful place and home to the longest sandy beach in the world.

Image:   I think it says it all on his face – how much Austin loves Bangladesh!

There is something really special when Pebble distributors visit from around the world and go out to see and talk to the women who make the products.   It makes the whole project seem so much more real to them and indeed really enforces how important their work is as distributors to really maximise the sales and tell everyone the story of Pebble and Hathay Bunano.

I think you can see from these pictures that they had a great time!

Next week Shatkira – which may be a little wet.