PESHAWAR: For the last 16 years, the Hunar Enterprise women stitching and knitting training centre in Booni town of Upper Chitral district echoed with constant whizz of sewing machines as female students pored over the stitches under the watchful gaze of Qurban Bibi.

However, it all went up in flames during the early hours of Aug 4 when a blaze engulfed the market, where the centre was located.

Besides sewing machines and pieces of clothes, the fire destroyed the hard work of Qurban Bibi and the jobs of her several women workers as well.

The centre was run by Qurban Bibi, an award-winning local entrepreneur, who set it up in 2005 and employed six women.

A fire destroyed facility in early hours of Aug 4

“The blaze devoured everything I had built over those long years. The damages amount to Rs2.5 million,” Bibi told Dawn.

The centre provided sewing, knitting, embroidery, carpet-making and makeup services to the local community and employed eight women for Rs5,000-Rs10,000 monthly salary.

“I trained thousands of women from Booni and other remote parts of Chitral and many of them are now successful entrepreneurs in their villages,” she said.

Bibi’s was declared Best National Micro-Entrepreneur in female category in the Citi-PPAF Micro-entrepreneurship Award 2012 along with a cash prize of Rs 225,000.

She had planned to open up a hostel for the trainees from remote villages of Chitral but the blaze dealt a big blow to her plans.

Bibi told Dawn that she was hopeful that the society and philanthropic organisations would help her.

“I need to rebuild everything from the scratch,” she said.

Bibi also used her earning to educate three of her nieces up to university level, while a nephew is currently studying in the final year at a public sector university in Islamabad.

She never married to take care of her mother and these children after her brother was injured in a traffic accident and never fully recovered.

Nasreen Bibi, who received the makeup training at the centre to set up own business, told Dawn that Qurban Bibi was a blessing for the local women.

“I owe everything to her and a large number of women from Booni and other areas of Upper Chitral also do,” she said.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2021