BRAC has been actively engaged with the local administration since the flood situation began deteriorating in the country. The organisation has already distributed emergency flood relief of BDT 3 crore allocated from its own funds to 59,000 families. From next 30 June BRAC will further initiate the distribution of cash assistance of BDT 7.50 crore to another 50,000 flood affected families. Under this initiative, each family will receive BDT 1,500. The relief operations are being carried out in 12 upazilas of Sylhet and Sunamganj, severely affected by the flood.

Animal feed is also being distributed among the affected ultra-poor families in the flood-hit areas. Every family is getting 40kg of animal feed. ACI, a reputed industrial organisation of the country, has come forward in this effort they have sold a total of 203 metric tons of animal feed to BRAC at its production cost. Besides, BRAC Nursery has donated 222 metric tons of silage.

Meanwhile, World Food Program (WFP), has joined BRAC’s relief effort, donating 85 metric tons of high energy biscuits. BRAC's humanitarian staff are delivering these to the flood affected families in remote areas, with each family receiving 50 packets [2.5kg] of biscuits.

As always, priority is being given to the women-led households, and those with elderly, pregnant and lactating women and people with physical and mental disabilities. Even after the floodwaters recede, BRAC will continue supporting the people in the flood-hit areas with necessary healthcare services, housing repairs, and restoring their lives and livelihoods.

BRAC's humanitarian initiative, 'Dakche Amar Desh’, is raising funds for the relief effort. So far, this initiative has been able to raise BDT 17 crore.

In response to BRAC's call, the following organisations have joined its relief effort:  World Food Program (WFP), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, BRAC Bank, HSBC Bank, BRAC University. Besides these organisations, numerous individuals have joined this initiative with personal donations.

Asif Saleh, executive director of BRAC, has called on all sections of the society to come forward in this effort and stand beside the vulnerable communities in the flood affected areas.

Details of public donations are available on this website:  'Dakche Amar Desh': https://brac.net/dakcheamardesh/. Donations can be sent via this bKash number (merchant number): 01730321765.

On Thursday, 23 June 2022, BRAC organised a research dissemination event, “Learning Loss Study and Bridge School Evaluation” at BRAC’s head office in Mohakhali. In this event, findings of two studies on BRAC Bridge Schools and learning loss were presented.

BRAC firmly believes that everyone has the right to education. The organisation is moving forward in leaps and bounds to ensure access to primary education for every child. BRAC Education Programme has launched an innovative model called "Bridge School" in 2014. Children from marginalised communities get left behind when it comes to education. With that in mind, the non-formal primary education (NFPE) model was initiated for children who have never been enrolled in any school or have dropped out of primary school at an early stage. Children who have some literacy, knowledge in numeracy and have dropped out of school are included in a bridging course and then they are enrolled in either Class 2 or Class 3 as per their learning qualifications. In the Bridge model, a five-year course of primary education is followed in an intensive method so that children can gather knowledge in a short period of time. In the Bridge model, a four-month bridge course is conducted for Class 2 students. The goal of this course is to overcome students' learning loss and improve their primary knowledge.

A study was conducted to understand how effective this course is. Under BRAC’s supervision, a team of international researchers used Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) tools to evaluate the learning of BRAC Bridge School students. According to their data, it was found that BRAC Bridge School students were ahead in Bangla and Mathematics compared to their Indian counterparts. This assessment was completed in 2021, when Bridge School students – like others from around the world – were at a risk of severe learning loss (due to prolonged school closures since 2020).

Some notable findings of the evaluation of BRAC Bridge Schools include:

• Bridge School students have better skill in reading short stories compared to Indian students (53% relative to 50%)
• Bridge School students are more competent in division math compared to Indian students (63% relative to 28%).
• A significant difference was found when Bridge School students’ short story reading and division math skills were compared to their counterparts from different upazilas/thanas (story reading skill 34% to 85% and division math skill 35% to 89%)
• The performance of urban school students in division math is significantly weaker than those of rural students

The study was led by Stephen Heyneman, emeritus professor at Vanderbilt University, USA; John Richards, professor of public policy at Simon Fraser University, Canada; and Shahidul Islam, a doctoral student at Queen’s University. They all gave a  presentation at the event titled, “BRAC Bridge School Evaluation”.

John Richards said, “The Bridge model is targeting children who have dropped out of a government school or have never been enrolled. Most of the children are from low-income families. At present, about 20% of children never finish primary school. One important success of Bridge Schools is that they probably have better reading and math results than the average government schools.”

Stephen Heyneman said, “I have worked in 65 countries and seen many schools. I can say that Bridge Schools were clean, colourful and provided a happy learning space. Children wanted to be there. Learning should be joyful; and these schools had all the materials. We noticed that the teachers all used innovative techniques to connect with parents who used their phones and learned how to monitor their children’s learning. I have not seen that level of control and contact anywhere.”

Shahidul Islam said, “The four-month bridging course that BRAC’s Bridge School model offers to dropout children to put them back on the education track, helps them progress toward graduation that is unique in the world. This model has huge potential for replication in resource-poor settings/countries. It can immensely help in achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 4 in countries where school dropout is a major challenge.” 

Another study was conducted to evaluate the learning loss of children in Bangladesh where Samir Ranjan Nath, programme head of BRAC IED, conducted the ‘Literacy Test’. In this study, Nath found that the enrollment rate in pre-primary schools was 62.7% in 2020, which has come down to 49.6%. Although 96.2% students participated in primary in 2020, it has come down to 93.6% in 2021. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the rate of female student participation was higher than that of male student participation in pre-primary – which has now declined. After schools reopened, 79.7% students participated of whom 78.6% were in primary and 80.6% were in secondary schools. The attendance rate was found higher for girls than for boys. In rural areas it was 80.9% but in urban areas it was 77.5%.

Samir Ranjan Nath presented his findings on learning loss at the event. He added, “Learning loss is a reality. The question is how fast can we recover from it. This can start with assessment of learning levels of all students, categorise them and prepare recovery strategies as per students’ needs. Parents, peers, retired teachers and temporary teachers can be utilised -- keeping the regular teachers at the centre. Follow-up assessments of students can help understand the progress and take necessary actions.”

Prof Md Farhadul Islam, Chairman, National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) was a special guest at the event. He said, “We who work in the education sector - we believe in working collectively. Research is very important to evaluate the situation of our education. We will request BRAC to share their findings so that we can use their learning and gather information from them. We will go forward collectively. We are working on a plan to reduce learning loss. In this case, collaboration is necessary.”

Md Nuruzzaman Sharif, Director (Joint Secretary), Bureau of Non-Formal Education (BNFE), Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, was also present at the event. He commented, “The findings are very important for all of us who are working in the education sector. With the recommendations of the two presentations, we will work together with BRAC and others, and learn from their suggestions; and with that we will complete our two running projects.”

Mr Md Muhibur Rahman, Additional Secretary (School) at the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education was present at the event as the chief guest. He said, “The Bridge School Evaluation presentation was done on a BRAC school programme. I don’t have much to comment on it. Our education system is suffering from multifaceted problems. I will put emphasis on the recent problems: school closures and learning loss. It is still too early to comprehensively evaluate these, we are at an early stage. But I believe we can find a solution together if we all work collectively and share our learnings to go forward.”

Asif Saleh, Executive Director of BRAC Bangladesh, was the chair at the event. He said in his closing note, "The impact on learning caused by the school closure during the pandemic is profound. We need to collectively work together to recover the loss of learning and get the education of both children who have dropped out and children who may potentially drop out back on track, especially girls, children with disabilities, and children from ethnic communities. The learnings from our proven Bridge School model along with the findings of BRAC IED's learning loss study will benefit policymakers and practitioners on ways to accelerate learning and build our education systems back better."

Calling everyone to come forward to deal with this humanitarian crisis

The non-governmental organisation BRAC has been working alongside local government since the beginning of the recent flood situation in the country. The organisation has allocated BDT 3 crore from its own funds for emergency flood relief. The money will be used to provide dry food, safe drinking water, oral saline, matches, candles, essential medicines and other services to people affected by flood. The money will also be used to rescue people trapped in the flood. Initially, the relief will provide support to around 52,000 families.

According to the Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre, the flood situation in northeastern Sylhet, Sunamganj and Netrokona could worsen in the next 24 hours. Meanwhile, about 80 percent of the areas in Sylhet and Sunamganj districts have been inundated.

According to official sources, floodwater has inundated seven upazilas of Sylhet district and five upazilas of Sunamganj.

For the relief effort, priority is being given to the women-led households, elderly, pregnant women and people with physical and mental disabilities. BRAC has also decided to temporarily suspend loan recovery from borrowers in the flood affected areas until further notice. 

An estimated BDT 25 crore will be required for emergency support and rebuilding  efforts.  BRAC has launched a public appeal for humanitarian aid. Asif Saleh, executive director of the organisation, has called on all sections of the society to come forward and stand beside the vulnerable communities in the flood affected areas. Details of public donation are available on this website:  'Dakche Amar Desh': https://brac.net/dakcheamardesh/

For the last 50 years BRAC has been with the people, particularly with those left behind, and will remain so in future. The work it is doing to assist the underprivileged to become self-dependent not only in Bangladesh, but also in nine other countries, will be reinforced. As ever, BRAC will continue its future actions following the development philosophy of its founder Sir Fazle Hasan Abed that “never lose sight of the mission to extend a hand to those who need it the most”.

BRAC leadership made this pledge at its golden jubilee celebration event today on Monday (21 March). An elaborate programme was organised to observe the occasion at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC). The whole programme was divided in two sessions, the first of which was attended by the present BRAC staff along with the former ones. The second part of the event in the evening was attended by distinguished guests – high officials from government and private organisations and eminent personalities from education, health, sports, entertainment and media sectors. Discussions, display of audio-visual materials on a host of BRAC programmes and cultural performances comprised the programme of the day. Besides Dhaka, the day was celebrated at BRAC’s divisional offices also.

At the programme, honourable foreign minister Dr AK Abdul Momen read out the message from the honourable prime minister sent on the occasion of the golden jubilee.

Every year the organisation observed its founding anniversary styled “BRAC Day”. The golden jubilee celebration, however, has been observed in a much more festive mood. As a part of the celebration, 16 members of BRAC staff have been honoured with Sir Fazle Hasan Abed Values Award for their outstanding contributions.

Asif Saleh, executive director, BRAC Bangladesh, said while addressing the audience, “Our founder would say he had seen men to be defeated but never had he seen women to be beaten. That is why empowerment of women is one of the most important driving forces of social progress. BRAC has always remained focused on this.”

He further said, “An organisation sustains through proving its relevance. As such, BRAC will successfully tackle the challenge of proving its relevance at present and in future as it did in the past.”

One of the world’s largest non-governmental development organisation BRAC was founded in 1972 in Sulla, a remotest corner of Sunamganj, to assist the refugees repatriating from India to rebuild their life. Later on, BRAC extended its programmes for other marginalised communities elsewhere with a goal to assist them achieving self-dependence through socio-economic empowerment. Long-term programmes have been designed and implemented based on cottage industry, microloans, health, education, agriculture and food security, human rights, road safety, migration, and urban development.

The first NGO from the global south to have international operations, BRAC now operates in 10 countries in Asia and Africa, engaging with over 100 million people.

In the 1980s, BRAC’s massive army of field workers trained mothers literally in every household of Bangladesh in preparing oral saline with kitchen ingredients. Followed the government’s child vaccination campaign, under which BRAC covered nearly half of the country. These two campaigns contributed to the dramatic decrease in child mortality.

BRAC piloted its innovative school model for children deprived from education. The non-formal primary education model later scaled up across the country and beyond. Till now, in Bangladesh 140 million children graduated from these schools to continue their education. In 2001, BRAC Bank and BRAC University were founded.

Next year (2002) the famed Ultra Poor Graduation model was launched. BRAC International began its journey to spread this model worldwide.

Aligned with the changing needs of the nation, BRAC in Bangladesh now is focused more on urban poverty alleviation and skills development and employment of the underprivileged youths. Further, we partner with the Bangladesh government as the largest non-government service provider in the ground tackling the Rohingya crisis and Covid-19 pandemic. BRAC’s engagement with the Bangladesh government has deepened in the process of formulation of socio-economic policies and strategies.

All the programmes, activities and models of BRAC, the BRAC brand itself, have been built around the empowerment of women. Unrelenting, we pursue the goal of creating opportunities for women to realise their full potential.

BRAC will deeply engage with the marginalised people, government and other development partners to identify future issues and find solutions, and will continue to do so in future, said the organisers.