Bangladesh

October 11, 2012

Bangladesh’s Disaster Superwomen

A low-lying country whose image is often tarnished by poverty, political instability and natural disasters, Bangladesh deserves due recognition for the beauty of its landscape, its rich cultural heritage and the relentless zest for life that enables its heroic people to brave any of the obstacles that life in the world’s largest delta throws their way.
September 20, 2012

Keeping the promise

Bangladesh, Malawi and Nepal have been highlighted in a new UNICEF report as three countries on track to meet their child survival targets, incorporated in MDG 4 that aims to reduce under-5 deaths worldwide to a third of their 1990 levels by 2015.
September 17, 2012

Driving Miss Bangladeshis

We are currently in the midst of an important week for BRAC’s Road Safety Programme, in particular its newest, most attention-drawing, yet perhaps most potent component for bringing about social change – the BRAC Driving School
September 16, 2012

Engaging Youth: Going Beyond Skills

In Bangladesh, close to two million young people join the workforce annually. Many of the opportunities are not that of employment in the formal sector, but rather entrepreneurship in the growing informal service sectors.   BRAC works millions of youth and provides a range of activities, including many focused on income generation and livelihood.
September 2, 2012

Close encounter of the BRAC kind – II

Some of you may have read the first of these two back-to-back posts recounting my first field visit since taking up what must be officially the world’s most cumbersome job title – Knowledge Management & Strategic Communications Specialist – at BRAC. People have been asking for my card over the past month, as you do.
August 30, 2012

Close encounter of the BRAC kind-I

Couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to witness – for the very first time – a selection of BRAC programmes “in motion”, so to speak, from close quarters, out in a corner of the vast unknown that all of us cooped up at 75 Mohakhali know as the “field”. It must be all the news filling the airwaves about NASA’s latest Mars mission (not to mention the passing away of Neil Armstrong) but as I write this now, I must confess to being struck by some uncanny similarity between NASA missions to outer space being run from a control centre in California and BRAC programmes out in the “field” ultimately being directed from BRAC Centre.
August 17, 2012

Change is everywhere: rural perspectives on urbanization

“I want both my daughter and son to get a job as soon as they’re done with their studies…it may be in Rangpur, it may be in Dhaka…it doesn’t matter….but they must get a job.”
August 15, 2012

The power of the collective

Boragari Union Parishad chairman, 69-year-old Isahaq Ali, is a person of dedicated spirit to social service delivering speech to 4,000 villagers on July 7, 2012 in a premises of a govt. primary school.
July 24, 2012

Time to address maternal depression: A crucial concern for public health practitioners.

Having a child can be one happiest event in a woman's life. While life with a new baby can be enthralling and worthwhile, it can also be difficult and stressful at times. A woman goes though many physical, social and emotional changes when she is expecting, and after she gives birth
July 5, 2012

National helpline centre for violence against women and children in Bangladesh

The Bangladesh Directorate of Women's Affairs has launched a 24-hour call centre open to all victims or potential victims (women, men, children) of violence. The helpline provides immediate service to victims and links up to relevant agencies: doctors, counselors, lawyers, DNA experts, police officers etc.
June 28, 2012

Journey through the grassroots: Inspiration from rural Bangladesh

It was the year 2010. I had been working with the BRAC community empowerment programme for only six months back then, when I embarked upon a trip up at North Bengal, exploring BRAC’s community based grassroots forums of poor women, called Polli Shomaj.
June 13, 2012

Hope in the middle of complexity: Working with the urban poor

During the Social Innovation Lab’s last field trip to Hazaribag – a very poor area on the edge of West Dhaka– the team met Feroz (on the far left of the picture, wearing an orange lungi) a rickshaw-puller in his early thirties.His wife and three children are still in their home district of Rongpur.