A woman's place...

A woman’s place is in the home.

Over 2,500 years ago, a Greek playwright wrote much the same. For centuries, this idea has been used to keep women small, quiet, dependent, unseen.

“Let women stay at home and hold their peace”
— Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes, 467 B.C.

We’re launching a campaign that says otherwise.

Meet Amena. In 2017, floods destroyed her home in rural Bangladesh. Four years later, her husband died. He was the sole income earner. To survive, she sold her belongings, her animals, her land.

You might say she lost everything. Amena didn’t see it that way. She joined our construction training course and learned to build. She joined a women’s savings group and, for the first time in her life, could borrow on fair terms.

Amena's journey

Today, she’s building her own home, with her own hands. Including a clean, healthy kitchen which no longer fills with thick black smoke. In Amena’s words…

“I learned if I have to do something, I can stand by myself. I just need the opportunity.”

That’s a Homemaker.

Not a woman confined to her home, but one who designs, finances and builds it. And Amena isn’t alone. Across Bangladesh, and the UK, women are doing exactly this.

We’re AzuKo, a housing charity. And we’re launching The Homemakers – a five-year campaign led by these women, across both countries. It funds construction training, housing advice, fair finance and the building of safer homes. And puts women in front of the camera, telling their own stories, on their own terms.

The Homemakers campaign

£87 supports one woman in Bangladesh to access construction training… the first step on a pathway out of poverty. We’re aiming to train 5,000 by 2030.

You can…

  • Build women’s knowledge, skills, and confidence in construction.

  • Build safe, decent homes.

  • Break down gendered stereotypes, and the barriers that deny women their housing, property and land rights.

For centuries, women have been told their place is in the home. We say…

A woman’s place is wherever she builds it