In 2024, Sreepur Village re-launched an innovative Girls' Cricket Project to address gender inequality in sports and empower young women. By forming eight cricket teams across local high schools, engaging a female cricket coach, and preparing dedicated infrastructure, including a cricket ground and scoreboard, the initiative provides girls with athletic opportunities. The project extends beyond sports, incorporating community engagement through friendly matches, school coordination, equipment distribution, and a planned tournament that aims to boost girls' confidence, teamwork skills, and mental well-being while challenging traditional social barriers.

Read Chumki & Ismat's story

We started our Foster program in 2007, primarily for abandoned and orphaned children to provide them with a family environment. At that time, we also fostered some adolescent male children due to situational requirements. The program operated with local community families and included monitoring at both their residences and schools. The Foster Care program ran from 2007 until 2018. Currently, we continue to run the program with three children living in their own communities with their extended families while their mothers reside with us).
We have provided support to about 100 children (both boys and girls) under our Foster Care program in the local community. Of these children, 80% were boys and 20% were girls. All of the children (100%) passed grade five and were promoted to high school level.
The 2007 small local fostering program proved so successful that the British High Commission funded us to lead a study called 'Foster Care in Bangladesh: Challenges and Options,' which we conducted in collaboration with a professor from Dhaka University and Save the Children UK. The study demonstrated that fostering was culturally appropriate in Bangladesh and offered a good alternative to institutional care for parentless children, provided it was properly monitored. We took a leadership role in developing fostering in Bangladesh, implementing various methodologies such as fostering with extended family members and fostering in urban slums.

Is a brand-new social enterprise that designs and produces high-quality tote bags and packaging with purpose. This initiative offers businesses a fairer way to carry, while empowering the mothers we support with dignified employment, valuable skills, and the opportunity to provide for their families. Created to generate additional funds for Sreepur Village, Hold Everything is also a step toward sustainable income and long-term independence for these women – then follow with what is already on there.

Visit Hold Everything

On April 24, 2013, the eight-story Rana Plaza commercial building collapsed due to a structural failure. The search for survivors lasted for 19 days, ending on May 13, 2013, with a confirmed death toll of 1,134. Approximately 2,500 injured people were rescued from the building.

At the time of the collapse Sreepur supported the education and care of 147 orphaned Rana Plaza children. Despite the tragic incident we wanted to make it clear that faulting the Bangladeshi garment industry as a whole or not buying anything from Bangladesh is not a solution, because the garment industry provides an income and a way out for many previously destitute Bangladeshi women.

Watch Rana Plaza Survivors

In 2017 over 800,000 Rohingya refugees moved across to Bangladesh and were living in the southern most districts.

The majority of new arrivals were living in crowded makeshift settlements. There were no word to describe their sufferings, particularly the condition of women and children. In such humanitarian crisis, all of us needed to step in to help them.

Children living in Bangladesh’s urban slums must overcome many barriers to school attendance and academic success. The need for children to help augment family income can be prevalent; children in slums are more prone to early school dropout; they work as manual labourers or domestic workers. Many girls marry at a younger age. Lack of school certificates seriously limits future options.

Our SUCCESS project in Dhaka was established to work in partnership with families and schools to nurture, sustain and extend children’s relationship with education. Each year we work with 50 children, aged 8 and above, from local slums. All have been identified by teachers as showing signs of withdrawal from school or non-attendance.

They are enrolled in local primary schools, with partner teachers maintaining direct connection with each child and family. We liaise with teachers and families to monitor and support each child’s attendance and education progress. We meet all quarterly at our office and discuss the children’s educational challenges, achievements and aspirations .

We provide each child’s families with financial support to encourage them to keep their children out of work, in order to extend their child’s time in school, aiming for all to complete primary schooling.

Rebranded in 2024 from Sreepur Village Trade, the Sreepur Mothers Mothers Artisan Foundation (SMA) was established as a separate commercial arm to aid Sreepur's financial sustainability while providing mothers with employable skills. Our artisans create handmade paper, handicrafts, handloom products, printed materials, and jute items, each reflecting exceptional quality and unique design.

As a World Fair Trade Organisation Guaranteed Member, we proudly participate in networks including the Economic Cooperation Organisation Trade Agreement Fair Trade Forum, Bangla Craft, and the Jute 1diversification Promotion Centre. We've also established valuable partnerships with local businesses in Bangladesh.

By aligning financial strategies with its mission, SMA Foundation successfully
balances its operational costs while strengthening empowerment opportunities for single mothers. This approach reinforces our commitment to creating lasting social and economic impacts while securing Sreepur's future.

Sewing at Sreepur

Established in 1991 (through a generous donation from one of our UK sponsors) our handmade paper division is equipped with essential machinery, and processing/finishing equipment to make card and paper from jute waste. All this was inspired, overseen and established thanks to the energy and leadership of British Airways Captain Rob Jenkinson. For many years he devoted a large amount of time every year to designing and marketing Christmas cards which brought in a substantial revenue to Sreepur Village. While we mourn Rob's passing in 2024, his vision and dedication to craftsmanship continue to inspire our work, ensuring his legacy lives on through every piece we create. We still make a diverse range of greetings cards for both our local clientele and the UK market. As well as the paper making we employ women from the surrounding communities to decorate the cards. We provide specialised training in traditional wheat straw decoration and the work requires great concentration and patience but produces innovative and lovely cards.

We featured for many years in The Guardians Money Expert page as "The best Christmas card ever"

To honour Rob's memory we have renamed our paper making section 'Rob's Sunset Paper Project.'

Watch Sreepur Cards being made

In Bangladesh on average 40 children a day will die from drowning which totals approximately 14,600 in 2024 alone. Our programme is changing that. Teaching, from the village pond, vital life-saving skills to children aged 6–12, it reassures them to navigate water safely and gives parents peace of mind. In just one year, 33 out of 42 children at Sreepur Village successfully learned to swim 25 meters, float or tread water for 30
seconds, and perform dry-land rescues. By equipping them with these essential skills, we are turning the tide against drowning and protecting young lives, especially during the dangerous summer months.

Watch swimming lessons at Sreepur

Following the Everyday Science programme initiated in 2010 by our Patron Lady Tunnicliffe, The Talking Science initiative, launched in January 2021, aims to help mothers understand basic scientific principles and apply them to daily tasks. For example, mothers learn about water purification techniques to keep drinking water safe, or how nutritional principles can help them prepare more balanced meals for their families with limited resources. The practical knowledge gives mothers confidence and enables them to make informed decisions that improve their family's health and wellbeing.

Everyday Science at Sreepur

In 2015 we began working with young girls and boys on the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s densely populated capital city.  The children we work with are street children; they have no shelter, no rights or voice and often nobody in the world to care for them. Sadly, many of these children will die young. They are not properly taken care of, malnourished and prone to water-borne diseases. It’s this grim knowledge that compelled us to act and in 2010 the Sreepur Village opened a centre for street children. Sreepur Village centre supported between 250-300 street children a month, offering a safe haven, food and an education to children as young as 7 years old.

Watch life on the railways in Dhaka