Capacity-Building Project on Seaside Jewelry at Cox's Bazar

Funded by UNDP Bangladesh, SFCP through erstwhile E-Creatives provided project design support to SHOILEE. This initiative helped reinvigorate Cox’s Bazar’s traditional seaside jewelry entrepreneurship between December 2022 and January 2023. Over two months, 24 women entrepreneurs facing financial hardship completed intensive skills training. The impact was immediate: stronger business confidence, higher product quality, and renewed momentum across the group.

The project showed that heritage crafts remain a powerful economic force when paired with modern training and market access. Participants now run their businesses as entrepreneurs, not beneficiaries. Their handcrafted ornaments carry the coastal identity and resilience that appeal to both tourists and local buyers.

For us, this was proof that the divide between social welfare and economic development doesn’t hold up in practice. Two months of skills training, market intelligence, and genuine partnership undid years of exclusion. The women are now showing how inclusive enterprise spreads on its own. Their story is less an endpoint and more a working model for what happens when heritage, innovation, and dignity come together.