Skip to main content

Brac-2-storey-learning-center-frontBrac-2-storey-learning-center

The two-storey structure, made mainly of bamboo and other natural ingredients, stands two feet above ground, which means rainwater won’t stand. The architecture follows indigenous Rohingya building traditions, allowing better resilience to extreme weather, ventilation and best utilisation of space. From yesterday (Wednesday) 240 Rohingya children are taking lessons in this centre.

This first two-storey temporary learning centre (TLC) for the Rohingya children has been on a pilot basis in the extension area of Camp-4 in Kutupalong of Ukhiya in Cox's Bazar. BRAC and the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) have jointly built the structure with support from the Refugee, Relief and Repatriation Commission of Bangladesh government. The learning centre was inaugurated by the refugee, relief and repatriation commissioner (RRRC), Mohammad Abul Kalam, ndc, on Wednesday (3 October 2018).

The learning centre was designed by the architecture department of BRAC University. Standing 38.6 feet high and 25 feet wide, each floor accommodates up to 40 students in one shift. Like all other TLCs of BRAC, this centre will also run on three shifts, six days a week. The entire structure is temporary, so it could be relocated anytime.

RRRC Mohammad Abul Kalam, ndc, said: “The Rohingya children will be taught English and mathematics besides Burmese language.” Nesar Ahmed, joint secretary to the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education of Bangladesh, praised the initiative and also BRAC’s role as partner to the government. Describing it as a cooperative and fruitful initiative, acting head of operations at UNHCR’s Cox’s Bazar sub-office, Bernadette Castel-Hollingsworth, said they were looking forward to doing more such work in future. UNICEF’s head of education, Pawan Kuchias wished best of luck to the initiative.

D. Safiqul Islam, director of BRAC Education Program, said every child is a goldmine of dreams and possibilities and education plays an important role in realising those. BRAC has taken this initiative in order to accommodate maximum number of children in limited space.

The ground floor is for pre-primary level, and the first floor for primary. BRAC’s target for 2019 is to enroll 100,000 Rohingya children in its learning centres. Currently, more than 500,000 children are living in the Rohingya camps, of which only 31% are attending the learning centres operated by BRAC and others.

BRAC is running 317 temporary learning centres in the camps, with more than 31,000 children enrolled. These learning centres focus on early-grade learning, basic literacy, numeracy, life-saving information, psycho-social support and life skills.

waste-newswaste-front

Municipal governments alone cannot achieve goals - citizens have to own the problem and be a part of the solution, speakers said at a discussion on solid waste management, organised on the occasion of World Habitat Day 2018.

BRAC Urban Development Programme jointly with the UN Habitat and Ministry of Housing and Public Works held the discussion session on Sunday (1 October 2018) at the Osmani Milonayatan in the capital.

World Habitat Day is observed on 1 October. This year's theme for the Day is ‘Municipal solid waste management'.

The organisers observed the day with daylong events comprising a national rally in morning from Jatiya Shahid Minar to National Press Club, a discussion session at Osmani Milonayatan, followed by a seminar on the same issue at the Public Works Department auditorium.

Housing and public works minister Engineer Mosharraf Hossain attended the discussion as the chief guest. UNDP Bangladesh country director Sudipto Mukerjee, lawmaker and chair of the parliamentary standing committee for the ministry of housing and public works Mohammad Dabirul Islam, secretary to the ministry Shahid Ullah Khandeker, and RAJUK chairman Md Abdur Rahman were present at the discussion, among others.

"We are integrating solid waste management in the government housing projects in which we will ensure waste segregation and proper disposal,” said Engineer Mosharraf Hossain.

BRAC Urban Development Programme's head Hasina Mushrofa said BRAC is carrying out solid waste management operations in the country's urban areas. “Currently, we are providing direct waste collection services to 65,000 people in 20 cities and municipalities," she said.

 

nutrition-2

Effective implementation of the 'Second country investment plan: Nutrition- sensitive food systems' (CIP2) undertaken by the Bangladesh government will highly benefit the country's social security situation. The implementation of the plan will also substantially reduce the shortage of intake in Vitamin A, iron and zinc over a decade.  

Experts gave these observations on Thursday (27 September), while presenting the findings of a study on the probable impact of CIP2, conceived by the Food Planning and Monitoring Unit under the Ministry of Food. The discussion session titled 'Final consultation on ex-ante impact assessment of CIP2' was organised at Westin Hotel in the capital.
The Research and Evaluation Division (RED) of BRAC conducted the study with support from Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Earlier, BRAC presented four more analyses of the probable impact of CIP2 to have concluded with the Thursday's presentation, organisers said.

Chaired by Dr Kaosar Afsana, director of BRAC's Health Nutrition and Population Programme, the event was also addressed by guests of honour M Badrul Arefin, director general of Food Planning and Monitoring Unit (FPMU), and Md Shah Nawaz, director general, Bangladesh National Nutrition Council. FAO's senior policy analyst Benoist Veillerette also joined the session through Skype from Rome.

The experts presented their analysis on five sub-programmes of CIP2, the focuses of which are: improve and expand nutrition-sensitive agriculture programmes; sustain micronutrient-rich small fish production; scale up behaviour change communications on nutritious food preparation, safe storage, household processing and improved consumption; expand and strengthen safety net programmes (SNPs) supporting vulnerable groups including poor women, children, elderly, disabled people, displaced population and communities living in remote areas; and introduce nutrition-sensitive social safety net programmes  especially for mothers and children.

Below are the highlights of the analysis
1.6 million (16 lakh) women will be trained in home gardening under CIP2, with an expectation that 12.3 million (1 crore 23 lakh) home gardens will be grown over a decade. It will lead to reducing the gap of intake in iron, zinc and Vitamin A up to 4.5%, 8% and 100%. Besides consumption, the families will also sell the produce. According to estimate of the BRAC study, the initiative will bring $2.6 benefits against investment of $1.

CIP2 will train 3.2 million (32 lakh) pond owners in mola and other small fish culture over a 10-year period and it is estimated that 30% of the training recipients will utilise their learning. The household consumption of the fish will help reduce gaps in iron, zinc and vitamin A intake by 15%, 25% and 100% respectively. The combined benefit from household consumption and selling is expected to amount to $4 against investment of each dollar.

Behaviour change communications training on nutritious food preparation, safe storage, household processing and improved consumption is also extremely important as it will help ensure proper nutritional intake at family level and reduce the number of babies with low birth weight.

The benefits of reaching social safety net programmes to the vulnerable communities is longer term, with a potential for bringing up to $28 against each dollar of investment.

FPMU director general M Badrul Arefin said, "Nutrition is among the priorities of the present government and we are working to fulfil it".

BRAC director Dr Kaosar Afsana said, Evidence-based original research and studies are essential for formulating effective nutrition sensitive plans. BRAC will do more such necessary studies in future.

To reduce prevalent malnutrition among mothers and children in the disadvantaged families and communities in Bangladesh foods like fortified rice are essential. The study viewed that nutrition sensitive programmes should be introduced in the government's social safety net initiatives.

 

 

UNGA-high-level-meet-frontUNGA-high-level-meet1

The international community must increase investments in the invention and application of new tools and treatments, such as vaccines, diagnostics and drugs to successfully fight tuberculosis, the world’s deadliest communicable disease.

BRAC chairperson Sir Fazle Hasan Abed said these while addressing a high level meeting of UN General Assembly on Wednesday (26 September 2018).

Speaking at the Multi-stakeholder Panel 1 session on fight against tuberculosis, Sir Fazle observed that one of the leading causes of inadequate funding is that it is the disease of the third world where living conditions are often extremely unhealthy.

Having stressed finding out innovative delivery mechanisms “that account for the lived reality of tuberculosis patients,” Sir Fazle shared with audience BRAC’s innovation in this regard. In Bangladesh the biggest barrier to TB treatment is that often patients do not adhere to the long treatment course.

By applying a simple economic nudge BRAC nearly solved the issue. It asks a TB patient at the start of treatment to put down a deposit of 200 taka ($2.40) and get it back after completing the course. Led by the policy direction of the Bangladesh government, BRAC now reaches 101 million people and ensure case detection and treatment for over 160,000 TB patients annually with 94 per cent cure rate.

He also emphasised collaborative actions, saying “nongovernmental organisations, enabled by governments and in partnership with donors and the private sector, can play a critical role in this area”.

“With a renewed commitment to funding combined with a focus on effective and innovative delivery methods I believe we can finally relegate tuberculosis to the history books”, said BRAC chairperson.

 un-youth-2030-sir-fazle

Adequate investments in programmes to empower the next generation are a prerequisite for young people to realise their full potential, said BRAC chairperson Sir Fazle Hasan Abed at a high level UN event in New York on Monday (24 September 2018).

The event titled "Youth2030" saw the combined launch of the "Youth2030: The United Nations Strategy on Youth" and "'Generation Unlimited' Partnership", an initiative of the UNICEF, targeting the development of the world's young population. Sir Fazle is a member of the leaders group of 'Generation Unlimited' as a representative of civil society. The leaders' group also includes the UN secretary-general, president of Rwanda, prime minister of Ethiopia, and chief executive officer of Unilever, among its other members.

Watch the full video here


"I have long envisioned a world where children born in slums will become engineers, scholars and presidents. The world sees immense challenges, but a better future beckons for today’s youth. The promise of technology is opening up new opportunities. Poverty rates are falling in all major regions of the world. Supported by our commitment to the UN Youth Strategy and the Generation Unlimited Partnership, I believe young people – through compassion, ethical leadership, and a view toward equity – will make that vision a reality," said Sir Fazle in his speech.

The UN has launched its youth strategy to cater to the needs of young population which has now reached 1.8 billion between the ages of 10 and 24, being the largest young generation in history. In line with the Youth2030 strategy the UNICEF initiated the 'Generation Unlimited' Partnership that aims to ensure that every young person is in education, learning, training or employment by 2030.

"I commit to working with governments to ensure adequate investments in programmes to empower the next generation of global leaders," said Sir Fazle, while also observed, "These programmes must include improvements in the quality of secondary schooling. They must also include more relevant and advanced vocational skills training, more effective girls’ empowerment programmes, and more inclusive higher learning opportunities."

To learn more about Youth2030, click here

#Youth2030 #GenUnlimited

 

spaceonearth-frontspaceonearth

Ongoing international dialogues and actions to support the forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals sheltered in Bangladesh need to be stronger to ensure a safe and meaningful future for the more than 500,000 children from this community. The call was raised at a program organised by BRAC, one of the leading on-ground responders, at BRAC Centre Auditorium in Dhaka this morning, marking one-year since the influx began. BRAC senior officials shared experiences and learnings with journalists from the last 12 months of humanitarian interventions.

At the event, BRAC also announced the launching of an international communication campaign titled #SpaceOnEarth, to help strengthen global support for the Rohingya, especially the children. The campaign was developed in partnership with Ogilvy and Texel Foundation.

Women and children typically bear the biggest brunt of any disaster. Children are often left with no option but to shoulder the same responsibilities as parents. In the #SpaceOnEarth video, Rohingya children describe in their own words the atrocities they faced. They ask: in a world as big as ours there must surely be a safe place they can call home. The video can be accessed here: https://bit.ly/2wOP93f

BRAC Executive Director Dr Muhammad Musa said children are behaving like adults. They have seen so much atrocity in their short lives that they have forgotten to cry, as if their childhood is lost. “We cannot let that happen and the world needs to step in to support the effort to ensure a meaningful future for these children.”

The event began with Dr Akramul Islam, director of BRAC's Humanitarian Crisis Management Programme, giving an overview of the organisation’s activities for the Rohingya community in the last year. He stressed BRAC's involvement with both the Rohingya and the host communities.

BRAC, as one of the very first responders to the crisis, provided emergency services in the first phase, and then expanded into comprehensive, coordinated services in areas such as healthcare, education, skills development and agriculture, as a partner to the government. Until now, more than 45,000 children have been registered in BRAC’s child friendly spaces. BRAC’s healthcare centres provided consultation to over 1.1 million people and nearly 150,000 people are now living in shelters built by BRAC. In addition, BRAC has also been serving people from the host communities from Teknaf and Ukhiya with education, life skills, livelihood and emergency support.

Thursday, 26 July 2018 00:00

BRAC’s Annual Report 2017 launched

annual-report-2017-frontannual-report-2017

Investing in next generation and eliminating extreme poverty are at the heart of Bangladesh’s pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and BRAC, the biggest development organisation in the world, has been a strong supporter. Senior officials of the non-governmental organisation said this at the launching event of BRAC’s Annual Report 2017 in Dhaka Thursday (26 July 2018) morning.

At the programme organised at the BRAC Centre Auditorium at Mohakhali in the capital, Dr Muhammad Musa, executive director of the organisation, said BRAC has been playing an important role in supporting the government’s efforts to achieve the SDGs. The organisation has been working to eliminate extreme poverty through its Targeting the Ultra Poor (TUP) programme since 2002. In 2017, more than 75,000 households have permanently emerged from extreme poverty with assistance from BRAC’s poverty eradication programme. In addition, last year, BRAC provided humanitarian assistance to over 600,000 people from the Rohingya community and the programme is still running.

Dr Muhammad Musa also said, BRAC is focusing on eight areas in its five-year strategic plan covering the period of 2016-2020, namely, eliminating extreme poverty; expanding financial choices of people living in poverty; employable skills for decent work at home and abroad; climate change and emergency response; gender equality; universal access to healthcare, nutrition, water and sanitation; pro-poor urban development; and investing in the next generation.

Asif Saleh, BRAC’s senior director for strategy, communications and empowerment, said they had provided skills training and employment assistance to nearly 34,000 youth in 2017. Furthermore, over 3.8 million children and teenagers enrolled in the 44,000 schools and centres of BRAC across the country last year alone.

Having referred to the World Bank data, Asif Saleh further said every year 2.2 million youths enter the job market, but 41 per cent of them are not equipped with necessary education and skill training for obtaining decent jobs. To address this gap in skill education BRAC has set a target to train 400 thousand job entrants by 2020.

LANSA-BRAC-frontLANSA-BRAC

Children living in the coastal and wetland (haor) regions in Bangladesh are 1.5 times more likely to be stunted - one of the findings from a study conducted by LANSA, led by BRAC. The study explores agricultural innovations to fight malnutrition in Bangladesh.

The study identified haors and the coastal belt in Bangladesh, which are geographically distinct from other parts (waterlogged and salinity affected areas, respectively), as pockets of undernutrition. Analysis showed that overall prevalence of stunting ranged from 46.6% in the haor basin to 30.9% in other parts of Bangladesh, whereas the prevalence of underweight ranged from 44.5% in the haor basin to 34.1% in other areas. This is a serious cause of concern for the country.

This was revealed at the concluding seminar for the Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA) – an international research partnership of which BRAC is a partner. The seminar titled ‘Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in Bangladesh’ was held at the BRAC Centre today, 23 July 2018. LANSA programme is funded by UKaid.

The chief guest at the seminar was Fazle Wahid Khondaker, Additional Secretary (Research) of the Ministry of Agriculture. The seminar was chaired by Dr Imran Matin, executive director of BRAC Institute of Governance and Development. Dr Samir Kanti Sarker, director of Institute of Public Health and Nutrition (IPHN), Dr Lalita Bhattacharjee, senior nutritionist of FAO, Prof Abdul Bayes, former director of Research and team lead of LANSA BRAC also spoke on the occasion.

Research revealed there is a strong interrelation between crop diversity, diet diversity and nutritional outcomes. It was found that the number of people with malnutrition will decrease if we increase production of diet-diverse and nutrition-rich food items.

The seminar emphasised that there is a need to increase public awareness on these issues. The discussants and participants at the seminar called for the government to take up more initiatives in encouraging farmers to cultivate diverse crops in order to increase nutritional outcomes.

The Additional Secretary Fazle W Khondaker, in his speech, mentioned that the government is working towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Agriculture remains the most important tool to achieve the targets and overall development. However, right now the country’s agriculture is facing major challenges with the adverse effects of climate change, labour shortages, floods and flash floods, severe storms, tidal surges, and other natural disasters.

He said, “Agriculture is directly related to our food and nutrition. So we are working towards sustainable agricultural practices and systems, and food security. To achieve this, all sectors need to work in close collaboration with each other.”

Dr Samir Kanti Sarker said, “There is a need for health education along with the regular education system. Knowledge regarding food is necessary to ensure nutrition outcomes. We need to have an integrated approach towards building this knowledge.”

Dr Imran Matin mentioned that to achieve better nutrition, three things should be focused on among others: the role of access to information, the role of agriculture incentives and the role of food consumption behaviour. It is time to go for interventions and identify cost effective approaches to address malnutrition through agriculture.

A synthesis of LANSA research studies was presented by Barnali Chakraborty, senior research fellow of BRAC’s research and evaluation division. Dr Lalita Bhattacharjee, senior nutritionist of FAO presented a paper on ‘Agriculture and Nutrition: Lessons learned from FAO Projects on Food based nutrition strategies’. Dr Mahfuza Rifat, programme head of BRAC’s health, nutrition and population programme, presented a paper on ‘Nutrition Interventions of BRAC’.

The seminar discussed different approaches to combat malnutrition for the people living in poverty, like, school nutrition/feeding programme, encouraging more consumption of milk, increased food storage, and processing capacity, etc.

The discussants recommended that special programmes should be adopted in response to the special needs of geographically fragile and vulnerable areas of the country.

Wednesday, 25 July 2018 00:00

Urban Innovation Challenge launched

uic-2018uic-2018-front

Around 55 million people live in the cities and other urban areas of Bangladesh. With the ever increasing pressure of people bound for urban areas the problems in urban living are rising too. Social development organisation BRAC is encouraging and promoting the youths to take on these challenges with creative solutions. With this objective BRAC launched its second 'Urban Innovation Challenge' today on 24 July (Tuesday).

State minister for information communication and technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak opened the programme at the BRAC Centre. Asif Saleh, senior, director, strategy, communications and empowerment, BRAC and BRAC International, moderated the event.

Having called on all to come forward to create scopes for youths to explore their power of innovation, the state minister said that this responsibility does not lies solely with the government.

The government is ready to extend all kinds of assistance to the innovators who are coming forward from such initiatives of the non-governmental actors, he further said, hoping that the innovations by the young people will one day solve all the problems plaguing the life of the urban people at present.

uic-2018-inner

Savar municipality mayor Mohammad Abdul Gani was present at the programme as special guest. The panel speakers at the event were Tina Jabeen, investment adviser, Startup Bangladesh, ICT Division, Munir Hasan, coordinator, Youth Programme, Prothom Alo, Saif Kamal, founder, Toru Institute of Inclusive Innovation, and Rubana Huq, managing director, Mohammadi Group.

In the 'Entrepreneurs talk' session the speakers were Abu Sayed Al Sagor, chief executive officer, BD Assistant, Farhana Rashid, co-founder, Bhumijo, and Shahriar Hasan Jisun, chairman, Bloodman.

BRAC senior director Asif Saleh said, 'We are intent on providing scope and necessary assistance so that the different innovative ideas for solving urban problems can be translated into social entrepreneurships.' He also called on the investors to take initiatives to nurture the country's young talents.

In this competition event plans for sustainable solutions addressing different urban problems in five categories can be submitted from across the country. The categories are housing, healthcare, safe water and hygiene, renewable fuel resources, and climate change. A jury board, after analysing the merit of these plans, will declare awards in all the categories.

BRAC will grant a period of six months to the winning team to implement their plans with a grant of up to BDT 5 lakh. BRAC will also help the winning teams establish contact with probable investors.

Deadline for submission of applications: 30 August 2018.
To send applications please log-in to: uic.brac.net

in-media-farisa-kabir

Law Desk (LD): Could you tell us about the background of the study titled 'Justice Needs and Satisfaction in Bangladesh, 2018: Legal Problems in Daily Life'?

Farisa Kabir (FK): Jointly published by HiiL (a Netherlands based organisation) and BRAC, the report talks about legal problems in daily life of the people of Bangladesh. A nationwide survey on justice needs and satisfaction was conducted aiming to make the demand for justice in Bangladesh transparent and to outline what people of our country mean by their notion of justice.

Also they talked about how people see their justice journey. The questions here include, if a person is in a legal trouble how do they want to solve the problem? Where do they go first? Who do they consult? Do they seek informal services? Do they seek professional help? Are they satisfied with that professional help?

As their local co-coordinating partner, we assisted in conducting some of the interviews. HiiL did most of it by conducting 6000 interviews in all districts across Bangladesh among randomly selected adults in August and September 2017.

LD: What were the main findings of this study?

FK: The main findings of the study, very briefly, were that 4 out of 5 adults in Bangladesh faced one or more legal problems during the past 4 years. They have also identified three main legal problems people face, land disputes being the frontrunner. There are roughly 8 million people who are facing land disputes, after that there is neighbourhood conflicts that comes up to about 6.8 million per year. Then you have crime which is about 3.8 million per year. HIIL has categorised these 3 as the most serious current legal problem in Bangladesh. There is also lack of legal awareness. The main barrier to people not seeking legal advice is the belief that it will not make a difference.

LD: What is BRAC doing to make justice more accessible?

FK: BRAC runs a legal aid programme which has coverage in 61 districts in Bangladesh. Through these clinics we try to give local solutions; we have seen people prefer out-of-court settlements. Most of our clients are women, women who have come for divorce, who have faced torture for dowry, or who have been divorced and now are seeking maintenance. What we offer is solution to their problems through these legal aid clinics. We have conducted about 15,000 mediation in 2017 and on average we receive about 20,000 requests a year.

LD: There are 33 lakh cases pending in courts. Do you think we should think and act differently in regards to the backlog of cases?

FK: It is high time to think about justice differently. It's not just sitting in a room and blaming people; lawyers, bench officers, judges, infrastructure or anything or anyone else. We are at such a stage where we need to think how we can solve legal problems differently. We need to think about justice system, legal aid, and hybrid justice models.

The system should not be about adding more people to it or giving more resources, but going forward thinking about legal problem as a whole. We can think of mediation, formal arbitration mechanism for the poor, forums chaired by retired lawyers and judges, etc. We have to have a mechanism for everybody regardless of their socio-economic class.

Regarding this current backlog, there needs to be more analysis as to understand the nature of these 33 million cases. I think it is also important to understand problems of the people from their perspective, to understand their needs and think about how to create alternatives to the justice system.

LD: Is the current system of justice, formal and informal, catering to the justice needs of the people?

FK: This is a tricky question. It depends on who the client is. There is no end to effort from people, government, NGOs, civil society members to try and solve the problems. I think instead of trying to solve an existing problem we need to create branches to relieve the pressure of the formal system.

A core message of the study is that, a more effective and innovative solution could be implemented if the citizens are at the center of the reform. It also suggests the problems be considered at macro levels and solutions are implemented where people interact with justice mechanisms. Lastly, there should be justice innovation, which is about the redesign and improvement of justice journeys.

LD: Thank you for your time.

FK: You are welcome.

Join the world’s biggest family

sign-up

Subscribe

STAY INFORMED. Subscribe to our newsletter.

Top