A former schoolteacher, separated from her husband, Atia found a room of her own at 'Arunima', a project of a social welfare organisation Proshanti Foundation -- inaugurated on May 21.

This is a hostel with residential facilities for unmarried, divorced or widowed women over 30. Designed to provide a safe haven, it also helps to generate employment for them.

"We do not like to call it a hostel," said Salina Akther, general secretary of Arunima. "Inmates should refer to it as their permanent home," she said.

Salina feels the necessity of places like Arunima became intense because of the changing social scenario. There are a number of young unmarried, divorced and widowed women who are confronted with the severe problem of a place to live.

In most cases women live with parents or siblings despite many hardships and disadvantages. Most of the time they are unwillingly dragged into mundane squabbles.

"Smooth relationship with relatives that prevail when a woman lives with her husband changes when she is separated, divorced or widowed," said Atia Begum.

"They are left with no option other than to be accommodative in such a situation," Salina said. She added that student's hostel or working women's hostel is not the right place for women who find them misfits in such surroundings.

"A divorcee or spinster in her 40s cannot cope and adjust with the young in a hostel," she explained.

"But in a place like Arunima, women with common backgrounds and can share their joys and sorrows," Salina said. She was substantiated by Atia who claimed the inmates help each other to overcome grief like she did by assisting her roommate in overcoming the pangs of agony after her husband and son died.

Apart from accommodation, the boarders enjoy food, medical facilities, group insurance, library and TV, Internet, computer games, gardening, gymnasium and newspaper facilities. Single or shared accommodation is available at a cost of Tk 3,0007,000 a month.

"We have to charge our boarders as we do not get any financial assistance from home or abroad," said the general secretary. She added the organisation is trying to accommodate women over 30 from the lower income group by engaging them as service providers i.e. cooks, cleaners for paying members.

"We provide free accommodation and pay wages for their services," she said.

The organisation not only provides accommodation for its paying members but also helps them to develop as small entrepreneurs. They are provided with training, raw material and knowledge in different market oriented matters.

At present it can accommodate 25 but plans to set up a complex of 20,000 square feet for 150 women. The authorities said they also plan to put up hostels like Arunima in cities outside Dhaka.