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Meet our inspiration… Mr. Fazle Hasan Abed is a
Bangladeshi social worker, and the founder and chairman
of BRAC. For his outstanding contributions to social
improvement, he has received the Ramon Magsaysay Award,
the UNDP Mahbub Ul Haq Award (2004). He was also honored
by former US president Bill Clinton with the first
Clinton
Global Citizenship Award at a ceremony in New
York on Sep 27, 2007. Abed is a member of the Commission
on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, the first global
initiative to focus specifically on the link between
exclusion, poverty and law. In recent years BRAC has
extended its development activities to Afghanistan, Sri
Lanka and Africa.
Bill Clinton says”
Fazle Hasan Abed,
Founder and Chairperson, Bangladesh Rural Advancement
Committee, has helped lift millions of people out of
poverty through education, healthcare, and microfinance
programs in Bangladesh and beyond. He founded BRAC on
the belief that poverty must be tackled from a holistic
viewpoint, transitioning individuals from being aid
recipients to becoming empowered citizens in control of
their own destinies.”
Paula says:
”In September 2007, I had
the great pleasure of meeting BRAC’s Chairperson Mr
Fazle Hasan Abed, to discuss our plans to bring BRAC,
the brand, to Europe, starting with the UK market.
Having Mr Abed’s understanding and support of our plans
gave me enormous encouragement in creating a viable
platform for BRAC’s local
artisans and their work.”
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“With 3.4 million clients, primarily in the rural areas of
the country, it [BRAC] understands micro-credit and is
testing ways to further increase women's opportunities
to build assets. BRAC's "Village Organizations" create
capacity among village women due to improved literacy,
“education and leadership skills. Throughout its
history, village women have taken group initiatives to
form enterprises - group irrigation, brick-fields,
weaving, quality paper, chalk, etc..” Oxfam America |
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"BRAC has done what few others have – they have achieved
success on a massive scale, bringing life-saving health
programs to millions of the world's poorest people, They
remind us that even the most intractable health problems
are solvable, and inspire us to match their success
throughout the developing world."
Bill Gates, co-founder
of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. |
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BRAC began its Non-Formal Primary Education Programme in
1985 with 22 one-room schools and by 2003 it was
operating more than 34,000 schools under the new name of
BRAC Education Programme or BEP. These schools account
for about 11% of the primary school children in
Bangladesh and go towards fulfilling BRAC's stated goal
of poverty reduction through access to Non-Formal
Primary Education for those traditionally outside formal
schooling. BRAC hopes that providing an educational
outlet for students outside the government formal
schools will lead to the strengthening of the national
education. This can only be done by an improved,
full-range primary curriculum that will allow learners
to retain and use the literacy, numeracy and life-skills
that it provides. The BRAC schools teach the same
competencies as the government schools; however, they
enroll and retain a higher proportion of hard-to-reach
children, such as girls, who make up 65% of the student
body. BEP has been particularly successful in persuading
conservative communities in remote rural areas to send
their girls to school. The BEP model has been adopted in
about a dozen countries, although none to the same scale
as in Bangladesh. In 2002 BRAC opened its first
international office, in Kabul, and is currently
operating more than 90 schools for adolescent girls in
rural Afghanistan. As of December 2004, the total number
of graduates from BRAC schools stands at 2,792,878. In
January 2005, the education programme had 27,834 primary
schools, covering all 64 Upazilas, and serving 889,465
children. As well, BEC has 16,019 pre-primary schools
which cater to 453,338 children. There are also
approximately 8,000 Kishori Kendros (adolescent centres)
offering adolescent girls life-skills classes, library
facilities, and indoor games in a safe space to
alleviate the drudgery and monotony of their daily
lives. In addition, BRAC has begun to establish
Secondary Schools and Union Libraries, offering,
computing facilities, and continuing education for a
wide range of people across the nation. It has 850 union
libraries with 362,666 members, 160 mobile libraries, 70
computer-equipped libraries, and has also given teachers
training to thousands of secondary school teachers.
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In 1979, BRAC entered the health field in a major way. It
established the nation-wide Oral Therapy Extension
Programme (OTEP), a campaign to combat diarrhoea, the
leading cause of a high child mortality rate. Over a
ten-year period 1,200 BRAC workers went door-to-door
teaching 12 million mothers the preparation of home-made
oral saline. Bangladesh today has one of the highest
rates of usage of oral rehydration, and BRAC’s campaign
cut down child and infant mortality from 28.5% to 7.5%.
This initial success … has been replicated in about a
dozen countries. Wilkipedia November 2007
Paula says:
”As a mother of 3 little boys, the idea of losing one is
too much to bear, to be involved with an organization
that has prevent this pain for millions of Bangladeshi
mothers, moves me beyond words. It is through the shebika structure (see below) that BRAC have managed to
achieve such a huge reduction of infant (and infant is
defined as aged up to 5 years) morality from 28.5% to
7.5% in a 10 year period, and also implemented their
family planning education programme.” |
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“Family Planning -BRAC volunteers and professionals seek
to educate women regarding use and benefits of modern
contraceptive methods during their household visits.
This includes the provision of birth control pills,
condoms, and referrals to secondary and tertiary
facilities for other temporary and permanent
contraceptive methods.”
BRAC USA
Paula says:
”BRAC has
been a fundamental participant in the ensuring that
through education and understanding that the average
family in Bangladesh is now 5, that’s 3 children and mum
and dad. No other developing country in the world has
been able to achieve this” |
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“The [BRAC] shebikas of the community health
volunteers play an important part in implementing BRAC’s
Health Programme. Each shebika is responsible for 300
households. They undergo 3 weeks of basic training
before working with the community. Through door-to-door
visits and with their active involvement in communities,
they provide a critical interpersonal link between
health providers and community members. The shebikas
thus occupy high status within the community. Government
field health workers and family planning staff seek
their support and advice. Their popularity is marked by
the fact that some volunteers have been elected as
government members. BRAC at present has an active
network of 118,556 volunteers, including 53,089 shebikas,
53,479 poultry workers and 11,988 community nutrition
workers”
UNICEF-Strategic Communication for Behaviour
and Social Change Report (Feb 2005)
Paula says:
”Each
shebika’s is trained to identify 16 of the most common
basic health problems, and recommending & administering
appropriate treatment. In the event that the shebika
cannot identify the illness she will send the patient to
the nearest medical centre for further consultation”.
“Looking back on it all, there was no question; visiting BRAC was the most uplifting experience of my month’s
stay in Bangladesh. Everything to do with BRAC
contrasted with what I otherwise witnessed. BRAC’s
buildings were clean. People were efficient, lines for
the lifts, the transport, the cafeteria moved quickly.
Men and women worked together without the patent
differences that you saw elsewhere – and they were busy.
There was none of the usual negativity of naysayers;
problems were translated into solutions. And perhaps
most critical of all, the poor were viewed and treated
as full development partners – not recipients. So, back
to where I started: if you’re short of inspiration,
ready to learn or lend a hand, I’d recommend a look at
BRAC.”
Fawzia Rasheed (FR) is a development consultant
and writer. Previously Senior Policy Advisor to WHO,
UNAIDS and Partners in Population and Development.
Source: BRAC UK’s website :
www.bracuk.net/reader.aspx?id=24&NgID=56 |
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