NGOs that operate in Bangladesh

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I have been on two field trips with the students. Our first trip was to a brac office an area about 2 hours outside the city of Dhaka. The trip took us through many areas were clothing factories are located. Savar is on one of the areas. brac is a very large organization and not only has micro-financing for women, but also banks, schools and is essentially the shadow government for Bangladesh. They have been in Bangladesh since 1972, following Independence from Pakistan. The tour was designed to show us the effect of brac's involvement in the village. The philosophy is simple - train key people in the community to teach about safe water, hygiene and sanitation and they will build up a core group of women who will teach another core group until the entire community has been engaged and habits change. We were fortunate enough to meet the nutritionist, community health worker and a primary school teacher and her students. Following the village tour we return to the brac office and toured the textile making factory. All the dying of fabric, silk screening and block stamping is done right there. Although I did not see the fabric being finished, there was clothing for sale at the store. This facility also had a water treatment plant on site to ensure the water returning to the river was cleaned of chemicals and dyes. brac also operates a safe dairy so milk from there is safe to drink. Anrong is a fair trade shop that sells products for the women. The shop is

The second trip was to see the work of World Vision in Gazipur. While not on the same scope as brac,the money is making a difference. The trip included their WASH committees - water, sanitation and hygiene - and one school. The community health nurse ( although not a nurse) was providing the DOTS program from World Health to a patient with TB. I understand this program is expensive to operate and may be changing. The program, which has been running in Bangladesh since 1999 has led to decrease in TB cases. Sadly, without the DOTS program, the incidence of drug resistant TB is increasing. A new drug has been approved for DRTB as of June 13, 2013. I suspect the cost will be more.

Everyone is adjusting slowly to the heat and humidity.

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Photos

brac embroidery room
Singer sewing machines and lots of patience

Freshly harvested rice, drying
Drying on plastic at the roadside. Always wash your rice!

embroidery machine being set up computerized
This was in a factory near the apartment