.2011, When the first lady of Qatar founded the wise lauteate summit (now biallanual in qatar and roving in even years) around her inaaigural winner sir fazle abed part of the prize was a 100 page report - "learning for a living" focused on how brac primary schools had become the world's largest non govern\mental schooling system;
large and revolutionary as this was in brac's second of four 12-year periods integrateg by si fazle abed, the core of ths movement was designed before brac village internet or other worlwide psrtnerships from 1996
-what shocks me : is how aid/developmemt experts, in this case mainly from the uk inovattion unut for education, can go visit one part of brac and not give much of an organigram to any of its other parts including in this case over 25 years of other education partnerships of brac. The case study of brac primary schools is absolutely compelling- bravo for innovation unit's reporting of that (and yes we get the picture of an organsiation that can support village women with almost anything) but pity that aid experts seem to want to continue silos -the report itself is quite narrowly focused --surely the sdgs need ever more interdisciplianry connections of education, health, finance, community partnership platforms, food security etc...
Learning a Living: BRAC, Dhaka, Bangladesh by Sarah
Gillinson Friday, 29 June 2012
I’ve been struggling for the past couple of days to start a blog
about my experiences in Bangladesh – not because there is nothing to write, but
because I couldn’t imagine how I would pick one story. So I’m throwing focus
out the window because in fact, it is the breadth and ambition of BRAC’s work
that is breathtaking and changing millions of lives. BRAC is the world’s
largest NGO, founded in Bangladesh, and with 60,000 employees (ed at abed's death in 2019 over 100000 emloyees) there alone (they
are increasingly working internationally too). Their ambition is no less than
to alleviate poverty in their country, and to empower all Bangladeshi citizens
to build a better, more prosperous future together.
Needless to say, this mission cannot be served with one type of
programme, or a single client group. BRAC’s major insight is that for all
Bangladeshi citizens – especially the poorest – to pull themselves out of
economic, social and political poverty, the support they are offered must
address all elements of the personal context and collective history that are
holding them back.
So I have met women in an urban slum who are being supported to
build small businesses and improve their lives. They receive microfinance loans
to kick start enterprises selling saris, cakes, fish and tea. But that is not
enough to sustain a better life. BRAC also offers them training to manage their
money and their accounts, to sign their own name and to get an identity card to
protect their assets. They learn about basic health and hygiene so they can
keep their businesses running, and their children safe.
Saira grew up in a rural village and moved to the city when she
could no longer generate any income to support her family. On moving to the
city, she struggled to find work and ended up brick-breaking like many others –
hard, unreliable, physical work. She and her children had no more than one meal
a day. Following support and a small loan from BRAC, she now runs a cake
business that makes enough money to send her youngest daughters to school and
to feed the whole family three times a day. Perhaps most importantly, BRAC has
helped her to learn about her rights. This has had a major impact. Saira’s
husband abandoned her eight years ago, with six daughters to support. When he
heard about her flourishing business, he tried to come back to share in her
success. And she would not take him back – unheard of in traditional
communities.
I have also met young children at a BRAC primary school,
desperate to show me the interactive games they use to learn Bengali, English
and other subjects. They clamoured to tell me of their ambitions to be doctors,
teachers, engineers and even a pilot – despite being too poor even to afford to
go to a government school. They too learn a broader, rights-based curriculum that
imbues them with far greater control over their own lives, and belief that they
can achieve anything. The same is true of the teenagers in an ‘adolescents’
group’ just outside Dhaka, the women in a ‘social capital’ group in a rural
village, and the volunteer teachers even further off the beaten track.
BRAC is not an
education organization. It is not a micro finance organization and it is not a
training organization even though it does all those things. It is a
citizen-building organization. It is helping to build a new set of values,
skills, aspirations and determination in millions of people by providing them
with a platform to do more and better for themselves. I haven’t even mentioned
one hundredth of what they do. But Saira’s final reflection on the impact of
working with BRAC sums up what I heard over and over again. ‘Now, I am tension
free’.
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