Bangladesh slowly gets online through local 'info ladies' – in pictures

'Info ladies' cycle to Saghata, a poor, remote farming village in Gaibandha district, 190km (120 miles) north of Dhaka in Bangladesh. These women travel to villages with laptops and internet connections, helping people – especially other women – get a range of services, including Skype chats and online medical advice
Photograph: AM Ahad/AP

Sathi Akhtar, a 29-year-old Tattahakallayani, or info lady, shows a 15-minute video played on a laptop at a weekly meeting for local women in Saghata
Photograph: AM Ahad/AP

A group of Bangladeshi girls, aged between 12 and 17, hold a courtyard meeting in Saghata to learn about menstruation, reproductive health, HIV and Aids, and how to use contraceptives
Photograph: AM Ahad/AP

Shemoli Rani Das at a weekly meeting of an info lady and her clients at Saghata. An online session costs local people the equivalent to about $3 an hour, and the info ladies earn about $150 a month. To get set up, the info ladies take out a loan of about $650
Photograph: AM Ahad/AP

Info lady Mehedi Akthar Misty, right, helps Amina Begum, 45, talk to her husband using Skype in Jharabarsha village, Gaibandha district. Begum had not seen a computer until a few years ago, but she now Skypes her husband regularly
Photograph: AM Ahad/AP

Info ladies, in their distinctive blue and pink uniforms, provide a vital service in a country where only 5 million of the population of more than 152 million people have internet access
Photograph: AM Ahad/AP