Cobbler-Man
This shop is situated here in 'Laldighir Pur' since 1975 and a traditional work for our family including 20 other cobblers who works here. My father was one of the cobblers who used to work in these shops.
Our previous shop structures were not very good and strong. It was made out of wood. We had to work in very rough conditions during rain. But in late 2019, government built this new structure for us for free. Since than our working condition and environment is much better. Previously we couldn't store new leathers, shoe-ties, shoe soles and other accessories because of not having a good structure for storage. But now we can store more in this new place and sell more.
We get loan support from an NGO (Mukti) here, which we use for buying different accessories. This loan is very helpful and we are very happy to invest it in our business. Almost 80% of the workers use this loan for buying shoe accessories.
I studied till class 6. I started working on this shop when I was 17 years old. Before that I used sell vegetables for 3-4 years in 'Boro Bazar' (Cox’s Bazar's biggest vegetable market). I had to join this shoe making shop because my father was losing his vision and we were facing financial problems.
We are really happy that we can buy more shoe soles now and use them for making shoes. This process is helping us earning more. - Gopi Chan (55) Cobbler-Man
