Anju Ara, 27, moved from her home in Pabna, Bangladesh, to the capital of Dhaka to work in a garment factory with a dream to overcome poverty and have a better life. While working at the Evince garment factory, Anju learned about the WHEEL learning center, a project funded in partnership with CARE and Walmart. WHEEL’s goal is to provide 2,500 female apparel factory workers in Bangladesh with workplace skills and literacy training to improve their standard of living and working environments.

At WHEEL, Anju and other factory workers learn to read and write Bengali, solve mathematical problems related to their work and learn about health and hygiene best practices. The training that Anju has received allows her to commute to different places in Dhaka because she can read Bengali, and she can count her overtime and calculate her production units, which improves her productivity at work. Anju’s employers have also noticed that her communication skills have improved significantly since she started the WHEEL program.

The learning center has not only helped Anju professionally, but also she has learned about maternal and reproductive health, which is particularly helpful now that she is expecting her first child. Now that she can read, she is determined to teach her children and help them go to school – a privilege she never had.