Gordon Brown: “When I ask the mothers what they want most for their families, they say with once voice: education for their children.”

This post was written by former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown after his visit to BRAC's education programme in South Sudan and originally posted on the Gordon & Sarah Brown blog.

Celina stands at the door of her hut hugging her one year old daughter Dokia, who is dying of malaria. Her son Efon stands by her side, unable to go to school because he must help care for his one year old twin siblings.

This is the picture I will remember from our visit to the newest state on earth. South Sudan is one of the world’s poorest – and in danger of being forgotten.

Of the 1,000 people living in the tents, huts and shacks that make up the village of Hai-Kugi, over 350 are children. But only 30 have schooling thanks to the one class room school hut constructed by the Bangladeshi charity BRAC.

18 girls and 12 boys are taught English, Science, Social Studies and Mathematics but outside looking in are dozens of children who have been turned away from the school. The next nearest school is miles away and while BRAC’s hut offers lessons free of charge, the 1,000 strong church school has to charge fees.

A mothers’ group meets in another hut. Thanks to money from the World Bank they are being taught about the potentially harmful impact of early marriage and ill health in childbirth. For some it is too late – one mother told me she was married at the age of 12, another age 14 – the majority had married before they were 18. But when I ask them what they want most for their families, they say with once voice: education for their children.

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Click her to learn more about BRAC's education programmes in South Sudan.

Mothers saving mothers

The following was originally posted by BRAC USA Program Manager - Communications Michelle Chaplin on the Half the Sky website.

Mother's Day is about being thankful for one of the most important women in your life: your mother. She gave birth to you (one of the most dangerous things a woman can do), fed you, clothed you, and made sure you went to school (and did your homework), among many other things.

Even before becoming a mother herself, Sweety Akter was intimately aware of the dangers of childbirth – both for mother and child. Sweety’s younger brother died soon after he was born because of complications resulting from childbirth, which the untrained birth assistant was unable to address.

“From my childhood I have always heard about the death of my brother. My poor mother always remembers him and I see tears in her eyes every time she talks about him,” says Sweety. “Whenever I heard this and similar stories, I longed to do something for such mothers and to save the lives of their young babies.”

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Private schools for the poor

The following is an excerpt from and article by Josh Kwan published in the Spring 2012 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

First, the good news. More children in places of poverty are attending school than ever before.2 Thanks to a major push by governments and donors, many countries have built a slew of schools, eliminated tuition for public schools, and mandated primary education for all their citizens. In India, for example, the April 2010 Right to Education Act legislated, for the first time, a constitutional right to free schooling for every child age 6 to 14.

Through public-private partnerships, giant education strides have been made in countries as diverse as Colombia, Turkey, and Bangladesh. Escuela Nueva has changed the way teachers reach children in rural communities and transformed Colombia’s national education policy. BRAC is operating the largest private, secular education system in the world, replicating a low-cost model for teaching children who had never enrolled in or had dropped out of primary school in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Pakistan, southern Sudan, Uganda, and Haiti. Nearly 5 million children, the majority of them girls, have graduated from BRAC schools.

Click here to read the full article on education initiatives for the poor.

Click here to learn more about BRAC's education programmes.

Key assessment of BRAC Uganda's bed net program

Malaria is the most deadly disease in Uganda. It is responsible for 25-30% of under five deaths in the country, resulting in 70,000-100,000 deaths annually. While children under five are most at risk, only 28% of them sleep under bed nets. Even fewer of these children are sleeping under nets that are properly treated (or retreated) with the necessary insecticides.

BRAC Uganda recently conducted a study to assess the performance of its bed net distribution program. Since February 2008, BRAC Uganda has been distributing long lasting insecticide treated bed nets through its volunteer community health promoters.

One of the key objectives of the study was to determine the possession and usage of insecticidal nets. The study found that about 40% of surveyed households in the Kampala area and 60% surveyed in Eastern districts did not even have insecticidal bed nets. Much graver was that only 14% of household members claimed to have used their bed nets the night before. This finding demonstrated insufficient distribution by NGO's and agencies working in this space. Additionally, there was clearly a lack of comprehensive understanding as to the importance of bed nets and a critical need for greater public education on the issue.

Related to this was a finding that many respondents claimed allergies and aversion to the chemicals used for treating the nets. Public education is needed to curve this belief and reinforce the importance of chemical treatment. Others were washing their nets out too frequently, depleting the active chemicals on the nets and requesting early retreatments. BRAC Uganda does not currently have a program for this, however the results of the study suggests this is necessary.

Another key issue BRAC must contend with is that other agencies are offering bed nets for free. BRAC might consider an arrangement by which it does the same, or perhaps lowers the price it is currently charging. It was shown, however, that users often did not value bed nets if given for free.

Overall, the study was a great success, bringing to light fundamental shortcomings in the program and on-ground realities that were not initially accounted for. Impacting the spread of Malaria is vital and BRAC Uganda will work on the basis of its findings to improve its efforts.

Healthy, happy and wise: nutrition for under five

On a gloomy morning, Rabiya (4) sat with her legs crossed on the front yard of her parents’ mud hut. A pot of steaming white broth made of rice water laid innocently beside her lap, and she was carefully blowing on it to cool it down.

The rice water, with its dull flavour and gluey consistency, would have been too plain for most of our tastes. Besides, who would fancy such a bland liquid meal that is nearly devoid of all nutrients? But for Rabiya, this happened to be the scrumptious version of an ultimate breakfast. Moreover, she was too hungry to complain and it was not like she had any option for our regular eggs and bacon/ roti-chapati.

At noon it gets better, she thought. Her mother would cook rice and boil edible leaves that she always collected from the riverside, and she would then garnish them with green chilies and onions. Rabiya liked chilies, unlike most of the children of her age, because they were hot and made it easier to overlook the tastelessness of the plain meals she ate.

She loved eggs, and despite the abundance of chickens at their house she was hardly ever allowed to have one, as her mother sold eggs for money to pay her debts to the local landlord. But Rabiya barely complained. She was too young to understand any of this, and may be because of that, she hadn’t had the faintest idea why she was so short of her age, or why despite being underfed she had a bloated belly. She could not even understand why she had problems seeing in faint light, or why she fell sick so often.

Rabiya didn’t have any idea of the fact that she was unjustly malnourished, and neither did her parents.

This scenario could be seen in almost every corner of the rural geo-space in Bangladesh. A study conducted in 2007 found that one in 15 children born in Bangladesh dies before reaching their 5th birthday. According to a World Bank study in 2004, malnutrition rates in Bangladesh were among the highest in the world. Approximately 50 percent of children under the age of five had been stunted and underweight.

During infancy, the risk of dying in the first month of life (37 per 1,000) is nearly 2.5 times greater than in the subsequent 11 months (15 per 1,000). Death in the neonatal period accounted for 57 percent of all under-five deaths. It all became too obvious, and it was about time someone step in and make some essential changes in this extremely important socio-cultural phenomena. That is the when BRAC health programme started the Alive and Thrive project.

The first phase of Alive and Thrive was initiated in three sub districts and one slum in order to test and refine the model. The results were promising, so we extended the to many other districts and sub districts in 2010, following the advice of the Gates Foundation and the AED/FHI 360.

Currently, the project is active in 16 districts across the country, and is providing nutritional care to 1.9 million children under two years of age. The front line workers of Alive and Thrive the infant and young child feeding promoters (pushti kormis in Bengali), the community health workers (shasthiya kormis in Bengali), and the health volunteers (shasthiya shebikas in Bengali). At present, a total of 1,082 promoters, 633 community health workers and 7,154 health volunteers are providing infant and young child feeding services in their communities.  The front line health workers are recruited carefully and are expected to develop and improve the community-based Alive and Thrive initiative.

The health workers are trained by BRAC in order to counsel, coach and show the mothers how to breastfeed their children as well as on how to give them cost-effective proper meals with complete nutrients. Mothers of children less than 12 months of age are prioritised because infancy is a vulnerable period for all children.

The health promoters also demonstrate how to make age appropriate meals for children, for example, mashing the food, or removing a portion from the family’s food for the children before adding spice, etc. The parents and caregivers are not only enlightened about the different consistencies of food needed for children at various ages, but also about the importance of personal hygiene and hand washing before and after meals and after using the toilet.

Different social groups, such as religious spokespersons, village doctors and the government health workers are also involved with this nutrition project, providing with their unconditional support to communities.

Sabina Yasmin is a infant and young child feeding promoter in the village of Zinari, who was recruited by BRAC after completing her high school-level education. Initially, it was a challenge for her to convince parents and caregivers on how to provide proper nutrition to their little ones, because no one paid attention to a young girl teaching them about proper and improper means of feeding, and it takes time for people to learn and adopt new behaviours.

However, things eventually started changing, especially when a mother complained that her two-month-old son Yasin was sick and fatigued due to an intake of powdered milk that she gave him as she was not providing him enough breast milk. When Sabina showed her how to breastfeed properly, correcting her positioning and the way of holding the baby, the mother found out that she was in fact producing enough breast milk. Thanks to Sabina's advice, Yasin is alive and thriving now.

A thousands health promoters and health workers are working relentlessly countrywide just to ensure that the infants and children are receiving proper nutrition and growing up healthy, and the BRAC family is proud of them.

By Miftahul Jannat Chowdhury
Intern
BRAC Communications

Click here to learn how you can support mothers and their children in Bangladesh.

More children are in school – but are they learning?

The following was originally posted by BRAC USA President and CEO Susan Davis on the World Education blog.

With the Education for All goals and the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015 on our minds, perhaps it’s time to start thinking about measurements of educational quality, rather than a simple push for increased student enrollment in developing countries.

Most public schools in the developing world fail to prepare students for the 21st-century knowledge society, according to Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder of the Bangladesh-based non-government organization BRAC, whose US branch I lead.

Sir Fazle, who was last year awarded the inaugural WISE Prize for Education, has called for an end to teaching methods such as rote memorization, moving towards a focus on critical thinking and creative problem solving. As the largest private secular education provider in the world, BRAC is uniquely positioned to move the issue of quality education from discussion to implementation. With 24,000 primary schools and 4.6 million graduates in Bangladesh alone, BRAC ran more schools in 2011 than the entire English school system, according to the BBC.

It’s an alternative schooling model that inculcates a joy for learning in children from disadvantaged backgrounds. We’re now deploying that same approach in other countries in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. For instance, BRAC currently partners with the American Institutes for Research and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning on a teacher training programme that helps children develop fundamental skills for life effectiveness. Through this initiative, in partnership with the NoVo Foundation, BRAC has provided such training to education staff in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Uganda.

Social and emotional learning includes the basic skills individuals need in order to handle themselves, their relationships, and their work, effectively and ethically. It is a crucial component not only of children’s social and emotional development, but also of their health, ethical development and motivation to achieve. This innovative and entrepreneurial approach to education is practised not only in BRAC classrooms but in our adolescent girls’ clubs, now operating in Bangladesh, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Afghanistan, and most recently Haiti.

Click here to read the full article.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets the “two national treasures” of Bangladesh

Knight Commander, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed and Nobel Laureate, Muhammad Yunus, have been marked as the creators of the world’s two best organizations – BRAC and Grameen Bank – by the visiting US secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton. In an early morning 9 o’clock meeting on 6 May 2012, at the Gulshan Residence of the US ambassador of Bangladesh, Dan W Mozena; Sir Fazle and Dr. Yunus met with Secretary Clinton for an hour long discussion which was primarily focused on the development of Bangladesh and women’s rights and empowerment.

Various other national and regional issues were also brought into focus which included feasible solutions to the electricity crisis, the current political situation, mobile phone technology usage in disseminating developmental services, the country’s poverty reduction capacity, youth empowerment, development success achieved so far in Bangladesh and its enduring potential. The two visionaries of Bangladesh have requested the continued support and assistance from the US in regard to these issues.

During the meeting, Secretary Clinton expressed her deep condolences to the family and friends of Mohammad Mohiuddin, BRAC’s Area Manger in the western province of Ghor, Afghanistan, who died in an armed attack on 3rd May 2012. She praised and appreciated the micro credit system, giving due credit to BRAC and Grameen Bank for the sustainable progress in the social structure of Bangladesh. She expressed her gratitude to both of them for their commitment and hard work towards such development work.

For a developing nation like Bangladesh, she has ensured continued US assistance for the betterment of humanity. Secretary Clinton said that she has known Sir Fazle and Dr. Yunus for almost 25 years and honours them as “national treasures” with the hope that the Government will also treat them accordingly.

By Sumaiya Haque
Intern, BRAC Communications

Poisoned: the silent screams of arsenic victims

Water.

Many can attest to its necessity, few can argue against its importance. From health and nutrition to agriculture and energy, one doesn’t have to look far to see the critical role water plays in our lives.

But what happens when this crucial necessity threatens our very livelihood?

This conundrum was the focus of a recent dissemination seminar hosted by BRAC titled “Rethinking the Arsenic Crisis: Strategies Towards Ensuring an Arsenic-free Bangladesh.” The seminar, hosted by BRAC on Thursday, March 29th, highlighted findings from a field study I conducted which was centered on understanding the villagers’ perspectives on the arsenic crisis. The seminar also featured a panel consisting of UNICEF Water and Sanitation Specialist Peter Ravenscroft,  WaterAid Country Representative Khairul Islam, as well as leaders from a cross-section of institutions ranging from the Ministry of Health, Bangladesh Attorney General’s Office, Dhaka Water Supply and Sewage Authority (WASA), and the US Embassy.

What brings such a diverse cadre of people together?

In a word, arsenic.

Unsafe levels of arsenic have been found in over 1.4 million tube wells across Bangladesh, a phenomenon the World Health Organization (WHO) calls “the largest mass poisoning of a population in human history.” Arsenic is a colorless, odorless, naturally-occurring metal that is poisonous if consumed over long periods of time. Long-term exposure results in Arsenicosis, an incurable cancer-causing disease with a high latency period (it takes 5-20 years after initial exposure to show the first signs of skin lesions on the hands and feet, and patients eventually suffer from various forms of internal cancers).

Over the past nine months, I have visited 26 villages across five arsenic-affected districts ranging from Meherpur, a border district in Western Bangladesh, to Chandpur, a heavily-affected area in Southwest Bangladesh. Across the country, the BRAC Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) field staff and a team of research assistants worked hand in hand in order to understand what villagers think of the crisis, how they are coping with the lack of arsenic-free water, and where they see a way forward.

Collectively, we surveyed 1,239 households and hosted over 50 focus group discussions and in-depth interviews for a better understanding of the villagers’ attitudes pertaining to water and the impact arsenic has had on their lives.

What did we find?

For starters, the fact that arsenic was colorless was news to 33% of the households (20% believed it was red, 11% yellow).

As a response to the crisis, safe tube wells were painted green (safe in Bangladesh means less than 50 ppb of arsenic, the WHO standard is 10 ppb) while the unsafe ones were painted red. In some villages, some people have been undoing this intervention and repainted their red tube wells green. Why would they do such a thing?

Well, in parts of Meherpur, school children with Arsenicosis were ostracised. Roughly 1 in 20 parents would allow their children to marry someone with Arsenicosis. The social stigma attached with living next to a red tube well was immense, and parents viewed repainting red tube wells green as the only way to ensure a prosperous future for their children.

This was a stark contrast from the realities in Golaidanga village in Manikganj, an area where there were no Arsenicosis patients, and people voluntarily desired to have red coloring on their tube wells. During my stay in Golaidanga, I noticed how all newly-installed private tube wells featured bright red piping. When asking the drillers why the tube wells were being installed with red pipes, they all stated how red was now popular amongst tube well manufacturers. This was emblematic of the disconnection that lays within the water ‘ecosystem’ of the awareness campaign planners, communicators, and the private tube well installation companies.

Many people knowingly drank from arsenic-contaminated tube wells because they hadn’t suffered from Arsenicosis, and hadn’t met anyone that did.

You can’t see it, can’t smell it, and neither you nor anyone you know has gotten sick from it. So what’s the harm in drinking it?

This was the type of thinking we found in arsenic-affected areas that had relatively low numbers of Arsenicosis patients. At the seminar, Peter Ravenscroft of UNICEF emphasised the need to motivate villagers who live in areas such as Golaidanga. The low risk perception such people attribute to arsenic is one of the most challenging aspects of confronting this crisis. Arsenicosis does not catch on immediately; it is a stealthy, slow poison that gradually builds up to skin lesions and various internal cancers. By the time the skin lesions appear, it is usually too late. Vitamin supplements and certain medications may be able to slow the health effects, but the most effective treatment is ensuring the consumption of arsenic-free water.

Khairul Islam of WaterAid discussed the sobering reality the arsenic dilemma has brought onto the larger water and sanitation sector in Bangladesh. In 1997, 97% of the rural population had access to safe drinking water. According to Mr. Islam, this number was brought down to 81% upon the discovery of arsenic in groundwater. He cited the 60% increase within the first year of the current administration’s water and sanitation budget (from 800 crores to 1400 crores) as a promising sign for progress, but noted how despite the increase, there have been no newly-funded projects related to arsenic mitigation.

The Health Secretary contextualised the arsenic issue amongst the larger public health challenges existent throughout Bangladesh. He spoke to the trending prevalence of non-communicable diseases such as Arsenicosis, a new normal for a nation that has been mired by communicable diseases such as typhoid and cholera since its birth.

The Additional Attorney General reminded us of how the United Nations recently declared access to basic water and sanitation services as a human right. He called on all actors to re-focus their attention on devising feasible solutions by putting the people first, and  switching the focus on understanding the villagers, as well as inclining towards delving into the lab and designing technologies that have faster flow rates or a higher capacity.

Dhaka WASA Managing Director Taqsem Khan stressed how fortunate he felt in the fact that arsenic had not been found in Dhaka. News to the contrary would be an unsettling scenario considering how reliant the city dwellers are on groundwater (even the best surface water filtration technologies seem to meet their match when used against the heavily polluted surface waters of Dhaka).

The keynote was delivered by US Ambassador Dan Mozena. The Ambassador emphasised the fact of how water looms large not only in Bangladesh, but also in the global scope of challenges across South Asia and the world. He cited a newly published report on global water security by the US Government when making the case for water as a critical issue that will increase regional tensions and put a great impact on national security. He emphasised how arsenic is focused as “the one key aspect of water in the Bangladeshi equation of life,” and that the other emerging issues such as salinity must also be considered when tackling the water crisis in Bangladesh.

Such interdisciplinary dialogues are crucial in understanding the full breadth of issues that stem out of the arsenic crisis, and underscore the need to work across a multitude of sectors in finding a way forward to overcome the crisis. To sum it up, the willingness to have such a diverse group of stakeholders to work together was itself a promising development, and the conversations that ensued helped to sow the seeds to a fresh approach to mitigating the arsenic crisis.

By Minhaj Chowdhury
Fulbright Intern
BRAC

Immunising little ones: Observing World Immunisation Week 2012

Imagine a small world. A world devoid of the harsh tales about unfortunate children – children who are not deformed by the cruel grasps of polio – children who are protected from the malicious glares of debilitating illness – children who are healthy and thriving. Imagining a world like that might have been something like daydreaming even in the recent past, but the world is changing. People are changing, and in the course of that, positive changes are being made. Now, immunising children from incapacitating diseases, followed by disabilities and death is very much possible by means of vaccination.

This year, World Immunisation Week is observed worldwide from 21-28 April with great perseverance and exhilaration, where vaccinating children against deadly diseases is performed across the globe. World Health Organisation, along with the countries around the world, ensure that the governments are putting their best efforts by providing necessary resources, guidance, and technical support in conducting the event. The weeklong activity performed worldwide puts specific actions, such as raising awareness on how immunisation saves lives, increasing vaccination coverage as a means of preventing disease outbreak, reaching underserved and marginalised communities, and emphasising on the benefits of immunisation, under limelight. Like every year, BRAC had also participated uncountable vaccinating campaigns across the country under the initiatives of Bangladesh government, providing access to immunisation to the vast infants and children population in the country.

Immunisation, being one of the most successful and fruitful health interventions in the world, helps prevent around 2 to 3 million deaths every year. Provided to people of all age groups, especially infants and children, immunisation prevents debilitating illness, disability and death from the diseases such as diphtheria, hepatitis A and B, measles, mumps, pneumococcal disease, polio, rotavirus diarrhoea, tetanus and yellow fever that can easily be avoided by the use of vaccines. Adolescents and adults are also receiving their regular doses of vaccines, being provided with the protection against life-threatening diseases such as influenza, meningitis, and cancers (e.g. cervical and liver cancers) that occur in adulthood.

However, some diseases like diphtheria, measles, and polio were thought to be almost eradicated, and hence many parents and health professionals found the immunisations against them to be no longer necessary. This perception had caused numerous gaps in vaccination coverage in certain parts of the world, which resulted in those diseases to make a comeback, which is most likely to affect everyone if any outbreak occurs.

Manzima Akhter, 5, is the youngest of three daughters in her family. Her elder sister, Muhaimina, is a 15-year-old girl suffering from disability caused by polio. Living in a secluded village in the farthest corner of Bangladesh, their village had no access to vaccination. But thanks to the NID campaign, BRAC, Bangladesh government, and the GAVI Alliance, as Manzima and hundreds of other children in her village are getting access to vaccination. Even in those of the farthest and secluded most parts of Bangladesh, little children, curious and wide-eyed, marched towards the vaccination camps accompanied by their parents/guardians since early morning, and it is that moment when it is realised that people’s perceptions towards the idea of immunisation by means of vaccination has changed, and they have finally started believing in it. BRAC’s shasthya shebikas have worked relentlessly since years in bridging the gap between the health care services and the people, and finally their work is being paid off as this has actually helped change their perception towards vaccination.

This year, the country has made a significant investment for the health of its children by completing the rounds of National Immunisation Days (NID) properly. During this year’s NIDs (first round in January 7 and second round in February 11), Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)/ NGOs like BRAC, with the collaboration of Bangladesh government , has performed outstandingly in vaccinating a huge population of infants and children across the country. Hundreds of thousands of field workers and volunteers worked endlessly to vaccinate millions of children in the camps, which included established health facilities and health centers, schools, and mobile sites like bus terminals, ferries and train stations.

During the NIDs, the infants and children received polio vaccines and vitamin-A capsules, and the enthusiastic turnouts of them and their parents exceeded all expectations as more than the estimated number of eager parents and children showed up and received their doses adequately. The BRAC field workers and volunteers were more than willing to serve them all those times, happily struggling to cope with the enormous number of children and their guardians.

Apart from the centers assisted by the BRAC Health Program workers along with the government and local volunteers, many medical officers who work at the Upazila Health Complexes and Union Health Centers were also ensuring the NID to be carried out efficiently. Nevertheless, the collective effort of the government and CSOs like BRAC has no doubt enabled this noble initiative to prosper.

BRAC is incredibly proud to be a part of the 20th NID 2012  that the country has observed with increased participation and awareness. The children, their parents and/or guardians, the government and non-government health providers, community health workers, students, teachers and above all the community people have made it possible along with BRAC teams collaborated with the Bangladesh government. . These unbeaten events proved it again that the Bangladeshi people have realised the essentiality of vaccines and immunisation and they have effectively utilised the opportunity given to them. This NID will not only be protecting the children from Polio and night blindness through the administration of vaccines and Vitamin-A, but also happens to be an indication of how much Bangladesh cares to save the nation’s future.

Investing in youth; financing dreams

About one third of the population of Bangladesh belongs to the young generation and there is no doubt about the increasing number. We are also aware of the fact that about 40% of the population is underemployed, many participants in the labor force work only a few hours a week, at low wages. So the growing need at present seems to be finding a solution to fight this and developing the youth entrepreneurship can be one of the best options.

Keeping the idea on focus, BRAC Social Innovation Lab with the assistance of Munir Hasan, General Secretary of Bangladesh Open Source Network, also working as an advocate for the young tech entrepreneurs-  arranged a seminar on start up assistance for young entrepreneurs, yesterday, on 25^th April, 2012.  The seminar included young tech entrepreneurs who shared the difficulties they face while the financial institution representatives discussed existing financial products addressing the youth.

This seminar was an attempt to identify the primary challenges for young entrepreneurs in their business inception to expansion effort and find ways to overcome these challenges.  The discussion during the seminar has brighten up reflecting on few basic questions like how to best support young entrepreneurs through financial models? Is there a need for a youth-focused start up finance product? And ended up with brainstorming most appropriate course of action in Bangladesh to invest in youth, not only financially but also through non financial means.

Discussing the assistance to provide youth, It was well appreciated and agreed by the participants that,  along with the need of financing their dreams, there are needs of other non financial assistance as well, in order to promote and nurture those dreams. While talking about incubating young entrepreneurs,  more focus was put on the advocacy support for entrepreneurship development, to provide assistance which are required to equip youth with the required skills for business. To do that assistance is also needed to the organizations those are considered to be incubators of young entrepreneurs. And when it comes to financing, existing funders need to alter their traditional schemes and risk mitigation practices and make it accessible to youth group. The probable solutions could be Building a business echo system that promotes venture capitalists and creating alternative sources of funding.

Economic empowerment is something that every nation seeks for and the same goes for Bangladesh as well. In this circumstance development of youth entrepreneurship can actually take the lead by empowering this huge fraction of the population. And to do that, it is required to create a better environment to promote young entrepreneurs.

Fighting Malaria Worldwide: Observing World Malaria Day 2012

“Sustain Gains, Save Lives: Invest in Malaria” – World Malaria Day 2012 on 25 April upholds a strong theme to reverse the rate of death in Malaria in developing countries. Millions of people in the malaria endemic areas are threatened by a simple mosquito bite that can lead to death. In Bangladesh, malaria is affecting 13 districts where more than 11 million people lives in a vulnerable situation. Children under the age of 5 and expecting mothers are considered to be at high risk.

The National Malaria Control Program is partnering with NGOs to implement control activities in the affected areas to reduce morbidity and mortality and achieve the Millennium Development Goal – ‘Target 6C: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases’. With the support from Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM), Bangladesh government has strengthen and expanded national malaria control activities. A BRAC led consortium of 21 local NGOs is working in close collaboration with National Malaria Control Program, developing  a comprehensive network that covers four districts, including three ‘difficult to reach’ Chittagong hill tract districts, and reporting about 80% of malaria morbidity in the  country (See BRAC’s Malaria Control). The success and sustainability of malaria control program is widely reliant on how far we could educate the community people about the disease and its’ consequences, facilitate early diagnosis and prompt treatment services, and more importantly, increase the coverage, reaching people in all 13 prevalent districts.

This year, the call for funding for malaria control is being highlighted, considering the remarkable return throughout the world. Continued effort to fight malaria will drive us attain the MDGs not only for combating diseases, but also for those related to improving child and maternal health status and eradicating poverty.

Assessing BRAC’s Health Program in Tanzania

Jade Lamb, a Masters student at Duke University, recently wrote a research paper on BRAC's community health promoter model in Tanzania. Below is an abstract of her paper.

Life expectancy in Tanzania is 58 years for women, and 53 for men (WHO 2011). Tanzania’s maternal mortality ratio is among the world’s highest at 454 per 100,000 births (UNDP); likewise, its infant mortality ratio is high at 51 per 1,000 live births (TDHS 2010). Overall, under-five mortality (U5M) is 81 per 1,000 (TDHS 2011), 16% of which is due to malaria, and an additional 13% to diarrheal diseases. To address these ongoing health issues in a low-cost, scalable way, BRAC began to implement a Community Health Volunteer Program in Tanzania in 2007. BRAC trained volunteers, all of whom were female and most of whom were also active in BRAC’s microfinance programs, to go out into their communities and educate community members on common diseases, identify pregnant women and new infants and encourage them to seek prenatal and antenatal care, sell over the counter medications, and post contact information for emergency first aid for children.

The intervention was conducted for 3 years, until 2010. BRAC collected survey data in treatment and comparison communities assessing health behaviors such as insecticide treated net use, sanitary latrine access, contraceptive use, and antenatal care in 2007 and 2010 in order to evaluate the program. Though the scaling up of the program before 2010 meant that comparison communities received the treatment, the program was still associated with increased contraceptive use and piped water access, and a small but statistically significant decrease in insecticide treated net use. I recommend that BRAC focus any additional health programs in Tanzania on contraceptive promotion, where there seems to be an effect, and postnatal care access and antenatal care quality, where there appears to be unmet need.

Click here to read the full paper (PDF).

Shalighor Polli Shomaj Pre-Primary School, A Light for the Future

The government run pre-primary schools at Shalighor Village have limited capacity for talented students. Also there is no BRAC school in the locality. It is very difficult for poor families to enroll their children to school here. Hence, this leads to learning problems and drop outs.
In 2011, to tackle this problem, community women’s forum called Polli Shomaj, convened by BRAC Community Empowerment Programme, collectively mobilized and opened the “Shalighor Polli Shomaj Pre-Primary School” , a home school in Shalighor village in Gouripor, Mymensingh.

The school currently has 40 students: 21 girls and 19 boys. The students are about five years old and they are taught by their teacher, Helena, who is the secretary of the Polli Shomaj in that village. She started teaching there on a volunteer basis and now receives an honorarium of 350 taka per month. The class lasts one hour, from 10 am to 11 am everyday with lessons in Bangla, English and Mathematics. The children’s parents pay 1 taka per day per child. The income received by the school is used to pay the teacher, the classroom rental, and to buy books and stationary in the school. Currently, the classes are held in the outside portico of a local neighbor’s house. The Polli Shomaj members want to move the class to a better location and class room in the future with a better school environment.

The Polli Shomaj members and the community people share that they hope to see their children do well in the primary school, and pursue higher education and have a good career and thus better life. Recently, 12 of the students from this school: 5 girls and 7 boys have enrolled in the government primary school in their locality.


Nadira Calevro
Intern
BRAC Community Empowerment Programme

Seminar on promoting education for adolescent girls

BRAC hosted a seminar on April 16, 2012, presented by our Research and Evaluation Division (RED) on: The role of incentives and institutions in promoting education for adolescent girls: Insights from research and practice. Director of Gender Justice & Diversity Ms. Sheepa Hafiza and Prof. W.M.H. Jaim, Guest presenters Dr Niaz Asadullah and Dr.Zaki Wahhaj, and Chief guest Ms. Rasheda Chowdhury and Dr. Binayak Sen, all gave incredible insight that hopefully provoked some form of reaction in each person that will result in an exchange of dialogue to take a stand and contribute to the research and initiatives being taken to pave a way for girls to receive an education in a safe, comfortable environment.

Girls in Bangladesh face a different and devastating reality. Recently, there is an increasing number of news and information on incidents of sexual harassment, murder of teacher and parents, and suicide of students and parents, increase number of drop outs, victims are pushed into early marriages, hinders development, high psycho-social tension in society, restricts mobility, of girls in particular, builds fear and diminishes confidence, and ultimately deprives youth of any education, let alone future. In Bangladesh, almost 90% of girls aged 10-18 have been victims of S.H ( BNWLA-2010) with 36% of girls experiencing such S.H. in front of their schools ( Baseline survey report on MEJNIN programme, 2010, BRAC).

Researchers such as Dr. Niaz Asadullah and Dr.Zaki Wahhaj have dedicated themselves to understanding female schooling and social norms that maybe affecting the enrollment of girls in secondary schools. Their research looks at the institutional origin of the growth in enrolment which highlights the hidden challenge to female education arising from social and/or cultural barriers to female mobility in Bangladesh. Both Dr. Niaz Asadullah and Dr.Zaki Wahhaj provided critical information based on the key pathways through which Bangladesh has made exceptional progress in improving access to secondary education for girls over the last two decades with a particular focus on incentives and institutions.

BRAC has made education a priority, as a result, a innovated scheme called MEJNIN, has been implemented in directly supporting secondary school going adolescent females in overcoming social barriers in the form of sexual harassment. Director of Gender, Justice & Diversity Ms. Sheepa Hafiza explained how the institutional context in which the incentive scheme was introduced played an important role in successfully bringing a large number of girls into the secondary education cycle. MEJNIN’s goal is to build awareness and confidence of students (girls and boys) and community members to protect and protest sexual harassment, and establish and form an alliance with government and non-government leaders.

As the seminar ended, Chief guest, Ms. Rasheda Chowdhury, Executive Director (CAMPE), asked some questions that demand immediate attention. These girls, and boys, going to school are our children, brothers, and sisters and what are we doing to ensure their security? What message are we trying to give the government and are we packing it in such a way that they sense our urgency? The problems and social barriers are evident, and BRAC has and will continue to make education and the rights of girls and women its priorities. But drastic changes can only be made, when each individual realises the fact that they play an important role in the lives of these children, from the maastan who teases little girls on their way to school, to the teachers who harass them in the classroom.

Honor your mother, change a life

Mother's Day is Sunday, May 13, 2012

Mother's Day is about being thankful for one of the most important women in your life: your mother. She gave birth to you (one of the most dangerous things a woman can do), fed you, clothed you, and made sure you went to school (and did your homework), among many other things.

Mothers are the driving force behind BRAC's success. They leverage our holistic approach to provide health and well-being to their entire family. That's why every gift you give BRAC to invest in a woman gets multiplied.

This Mother’s Day, celebrate all the hard work your mother has done by investing in a woman in her honor.

Train a woman to be a community health promoter in honor of all those runny noses your mother wiped.

Help a woman start a garden in honor of the lunches your mother packed and the dinner that was always on the table.

Support one of our mothers the way your mother supported you, and we’ll send her a card for Mother’s Day letting her know about the gift you made in her honor.

Click here to make a gift and change a woman’s life in honor of the woman who changed your life.

The ‘Poster Boy’ of Microfinance

Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, founder of Bandhan, has been considered the “poster boy” of the microfinance industry in India. Many people may be unaware that Gosh actually spent most of his time in Bangladesh. He is a Dhaka University alumni and former employee of BRAC. As a college grad, Gosh was simply looking for a job to earn a living, without realising that his experiences would direct his path to dedicating his time and career towards microfinance and helping others to earn a living.

BRAC was the stepping stone in his career and door that gave him access to a wealth of firsthand knowledge in regards to poverty. Throughout his career at BRAC, he probably picked up a lot of valuable lessons and information that he has been able to apply in many areas of his life and career. But one story in particular has stuck with him, particularly about Chairperson ,Sir Fazle Hasan Abed. According to Gosh, when, Sir Abed was teaching some elders in a village, a young girl suggested that this would be a never ending task. For by the time he finishes teaching them, a new batch- her generation- would be ready for adult education. That pushed sir Abed to open schools. This was the first and one important lesson that would help him in the future: To think long term. Don’t just focus on today’s problems!

Ghosh went on to work with other organisations, implement his own ideas, and BRAC has supported his endeavors along the way. We have a long term partnership with the Calcutta based development organisation, Bandhan, in helping them implement an ultra poor programme and a small enterprise programme in the West Bengal. We are involved with the roll out, selecting the ultra poor women and the process for distributing assets etc.

BRAC is an institute which is dedicated to the citizens we serve world wide as well as our internal staff members. Ethics and values have been instilled in the BRAC environment to nurture staff members in order to acquire appropriate skills and work ethics that will benefit the organisation’s missions and goals, along with one’s own personal development. BRAC has been a mentor, teacher, and partner to many individuals and has contributed in building leaders like Chandra Shekhar Ghosh.

Chandra Shekhar Ghosh has been recognised for his commitment to MFI in Forbes India, and as a mentor and partner, BRAC acknowledges Ghosh for his dedication, commitment, and vision in contributing to the overall goal of eradicating poverty through his microfinance approach. We will continue to support Ghosh, and Bandhan, in efforts to achieve a vision we all share in poverty alleviation, empowering individuals, and instilling hope in the lives of the underprivileged communities.

Read the article which was published in FORBES INDIA

Voices from the Korail slum

Many thanks to Hannan Majid of The Rainbow Collective for adding in subtitles to the below video we shot of the initial reactions of some of the people who lost their homes in the recent Korail slum eviction in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

More than just Frugal – BRAC and ‘Jugaad’ Innovation

An interesting fact; more than half the world’s population – over three billion people – live on less than $2.50 a day. What this means is that three billion people are currently left out of the formal economy! Despite public and private efforts, many fundamental needs are unmet. The World Bank released a detailed report titled The Next Four Billion that estimates “frugal innovation” to be a five trillion dollar market. Many of the last mile problems facing those trying to deliver products to the bottom of the pyramid are the same as BRAC faces in its poverty alleviation programs. With an increasing academic interest in this area, BRAC can both contribute to this body of knowledge and benefit from the findings of others.

Last week, BRAC hosted Dr. Prabhu, Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business and Enterprise and Director of the Center for India & Global Business at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. He recently co-authored a book titled ‘Jugaad Innovation’ that delves into the frugal and flexible mindset of social entrepreneurs in emerging economies. Jugaad is a colloquial Hindi word that translates as “an innovative fix”. It is a unique way of thinking and acting in response to challenges. Through thoughtful and economically viable innovations, frugal innovators practice jugaad to creatively address critical socioeconomic issues in their communities. The solutions are usually radically affordable because the purchasing power of consumers in these markets is radically low. These innovators operate in very complex environments that require solutions that are very significant, innovative and holistic.

Dr. Prabhu spent a day in Mymensingh seeing BRAC’s health and microfinance programs in action, finding to his excitement a great deal of innovation. “[BRAC is] perhaps the most impressive organization I’ve ever studied, and masters of jugaad too”, Dr. Prabhu tweeted. He was drawn into the concept of shasthya shebikas (community health volunteer) and their motivations to carry out extensive community-based health activities. When he spoke with a group of women receiving advanced training to become “model shashtya shebikas,” he heard several share how much they truly enjoyed their work.

Back in Dhaka, Dr. Prabhu delivered thought-provoking talks at BRAC’s head office and BRAC Business School about jugaad and how managers can use research to foster a culture of innovation. With the support of one of Dr. Prabhu’s research students, BRAC is now exploring how to build more of this evaluation and experimentations into its programs.

Venita Subramanian
BRAC Social Innovation Lab

BRAC USA's 2011 Annual Report is out!

Click on the photo above to check out BRAC USA's 2011 Annual Report. We've used a new format this year, engaging the Prezi platform so you can:

• flip through the report using the arrows in the bottom right hand corner, 
• zoom in on a particular item by clicking on it (double-click to zoom out), and
• watch the videos to get a more in-depth look at what we've done.

Enjoy!

Forceful Eviction of Korail Slum

On April 4, one of the largest forceful slum evictions in Dhaka’s history took place in Korail bustee, located near BRAC’s head office. Households and shops within twenty meters of the road were bulldozed, with approximately 2,000 structures affected. Homes lay in complete ruin, while those who could salvage some of their belongings camped on the local field or the road itself.

“Our water supply was cut off and we have no place to go” explained one of the affected women.

“The way the whole process was carried out was very inhumane. We received an announcement on April 3rd and the next day morning, the eviction began. We were given just one night to dismantle our homes, gather our belongings and relocate ourselves. Where will we go?” says another victim.

There are unconfirmed reports of at least one child who died, trapped inside one of the destroyed shacks. Local shops and bazaars, the main sources of food for the community, were closed.

BRAC’s community-based health, microfinance, and education programs have been working with Korail’s residents for many years. Thus far, it has been confirmed that eight pregnant women covered by the Manoshi program and approximately 10 BRAC primary school students were affected.

The Korail eviction is part of a larger eviction campaign taken on by the government, which started in various parts of Dhaka five days ago. In January, the High Court directed the government to demarcate Gulshan Lake and remove all illegal structures, which will include the homes of the approximately 30,000 slum dwellers. Dhaka’s District Executive Magistrate has committed to completing the eviction by June, with the next drive on Sunday.

“We have created a structure where there is no place but slums for low income people to live. They are the engine of the informal economy and yet the State likes to pretend that they don’t exist and this is the result of that indifference”, said Asif Saleh, Director of Communication, BRAC.

It is estimated that if Sunday’s eviction is carried out as planned, 396 BRAC primary students, 345 pregnant women and 352 Village Organization (VO) members will be homeless. Despite existing policies requiring evictions to include rehabilitation for slum dwellers, none has been provided. Local NGOs reported that “water, food, and a place to go” were the primary needs they identified. Thousands participated today in a peaceful protest to the eviction plans.

BRAC is planning to provide a small cash transfer for 400 households that were directly affected by the eviction. But without increased attention to the lives affected by these evictions, the ability of BRAC and other NGOs to prevent the resulting misery is quite limited.

"However technically legal the form of the eviction may have been, nothing can justify the fact that the manner and spirit in which it was carried out was fully devoid of humanity. No adequate advance notice was given, no compensation mentioned - and rehabilitation is so distant and unreal a dream that no one even utters it. What a mockery of constitutional safeguards of life, livelihood and shelter."

- Faustina Pereira. Human Rights Activist and Director of BRAC’s Human Rights and Legal Services Programme.

Dhaka is home to over three million slum dwellers, all of whom reside in what are considered illegal structures. According to a research done by the Department for International Development (DFID), at least 60,000 people were displaced due to the evictions from 27 slums in Dhaka between 2006 and 2008.

Bangladesh’s success in reducing poverty is threatened by forceful evictions that disrupt communities, destroy livelihoods, and uproot families. BRAC is committed to supporting its community members in Korail with emergency support, and supporting the development of sustainable and humane urban policies.

Venita Subramanian & Maria A. May
BRAC Social Innovation Lab

Personal reflections on the Korail Eviction

Hundreds of houses destroyed, thousands of people walking about with frustration in their eyes, some are gathered in processions... house wares, broken furniture scattered on the ground along with pieces of broken bricks and tin sheets. Houses of 1000 families in Korail slum has been destroyed yesterday. Two of the families lost their youngest child when their dwelling places were being crushed by the bulldozers. According to the newspapers, “170 decimal lands reclaimed from Korail Slum, which were grabbed illegally by some people and organisation. This land is owned by PWD, BTCL and ICT. Though this slum gives the living place to garments workers, day labourers, housemaids, rickshaw pullers and other lower class people, criminals are also active here.” This is the picture portrayed by the unbiased, fact based news papers. Unfortunately, what I have seen with my eyes has put me into the age old contradiction -- pragmatism vs. humanity.

It is difficult to accept that thousands of families are being forced to become homeless by the state. In four hours these people have lost everything - business capital to utensils. The land does not belong to these poor people, true. They were living there illegally and a large number of them are involved in crimes; that also are true. But it’s also true that lack of proper housing and job opportunities have lead them to where they are now.

Rahima, a housemaid and a single mother of an eight year old, couldn’t hold her tears while telling her story. Her husband died few years ago. She works hard to earn a living for her son and herself without any support from anyone else. This eviction has put her in greater uncertainty destroying her only shelter. Amena, a day labourer and mother of three children were telling how she did not want to leave her belongings even in front of the bulldozer. ‘I had toiled so hard to buy all those things, how can I let go of them?’

These people came into this town losing their lands in river erosion, harvest in floods, and homestead to the local money lenders. Within Korail it’s an entire community- they run tea stalls, grocery stores, tailoring shops, clothe stores- a whole bunch of economic activities. What alternative is offered to them? Without providing a substitution, evicting these ‘criminals’ would make sure that they become one.

Tonny Nowshin
BRAC Communications



“ I was at work, a neighbor called on my cell phone saying my house has been bulldozed, I rushed back only to find my bed, TV, tin walls and roof all lying on a heap”; “My job cleaning various house-holds allowed me to  come home in the afternoon and to my dismay found my home - gone. My once home was simply bundled up on a corner.”, “I have been sitting under the open sky the whole night with my five children, I couldn’t go to work today and will lose my job if I don’t resume work tomorrow. But where do I leave my children? My home is gone” , “Our men haven’t gone to work since yesterday, what shall we feed our children? We don’t have any money to buy food or even relocate to a new place”.

Walking down a bit of Korail road today morning I was came across all these horrifying tales. I tried to envision for a bit ~ going back home today at 6 from work find my home gone. But, God forbid, that will hopefully never be the case. “If they informed us a day earlier, we would have moved out”, someone said. “We only had some khichuri (rice mixed with lentils) yesterday; all of us along with our children are starving since then as our pots and stoves, food, money all have been crushed.” When my boss asked me to come with him to Korail to see the situation, to be honest, at first I wasn’t too keen. After going there it struck me – I return home in the afternoon, my safest spot on earth and I find it’s gone, that’s my worst nightmare which has struck these poor people. But, will this ever fall under our list of humanitarian crisis?

Eviction is by all means legal, I agree. There is every right to evict illegal occupants. But, what is not right is not be informed of the eviction earlier. One has every right to know before his/her home is torn apart. These are homes of thousands who play a big role in our lives. A rickshaw-puller I was talking to told me   “if our wives and sisters don’t clean your homes, can you attend your office on time and work? If we don’t have a place to live, how can we work and feed our family”. True, I can’t function without my domestic aid. True, I can’t walk far in the roads of Dhaka without getting on a rickshaw. True, our garments industry won’t be thriving as usual without its cheap labour residing in all the Korails of Dhaka city. Also true, these are all illegal occupancy thus needs to be evicted.  Another Kokrail will soon be on the making as we couldn’t tell these people where to go build a home.

Someone said two children were crushed alive as they were sleeping peacefully inside their shanties while their parents left for the day. When the bulldozer came, the neighbours who always look after the children of households with working parents, in the rush to save their belongings, completely forgot about these sleeping children. As a result, when the mother came, buried under her heap of household goods, discovered two crushed bodies of her sons. This is not eviction. A conscious mind and any civilized world will label this as murder in the name of eviction. Without an eviction plan, these homeless people will make it to the street for which they can’t be really blamed. I remember every time I went to Korail slum before, I asked people randomly why have you come leaving behind your village? Don’t you want to go back? Everyone always answered “apa, I have only come to Dhaka as there is no work in the village. If there is ever any opportunity in my village, I will leave this city right away and be near my own people”. I think the problem of urbanization is a natural occurrence happening all over the world in every big city and we cannot really stop it. These people are already poor. The least we can do is add to their every day struggle for survival the stress of being uncertain if they’ll find their homes and children in one piece after returning home from a hard day at work.

Tasfiyah Jalil
BRAC Communications