Part 2/5 – How BRAC Turns “Oppression into Opportunity”: # 2 Empowering Women Economically

This blog post is part 2 in a 5 part series, Five Ways that BRAC Turns “Oppression into Opportunity” for Women.

#1 Confronting Male Violence against Women
#2 Empowering Women Economically

If you live in one of the nine countries where BRAC works, there is a 50-50 chance that you will be living on less than $2 per day and over a 90% chance you or your parents have lived through a war.

Think about what you could accomplish if you had only $2 in your pocket. No credit card, no bank account, just $2. How would you get to work? Feed yourself? Feed your children? Millions of women wake up each morning wondering these same things. Without access to credit so they can build their own livelihoods and generate income to support themselves and their families, these women are powerless to escape from this cycle of poverty.

BRAC has made a total of more than $5 billion in micro-loans to more than 7 million participants with a 98.5% payback rate. Women typically use their micro loans to provide products or services, e.g. to grow rice, raise cows or goats, expand a small grocery or tailoring business. BRAC’s work gives people a chance to create their own pathway out of poverty.

For example…

For years, Musa Halmakta never knew how it felt to be in control of her life. Married in her early teens, she was unable to complete even a basic education, and was reliant on her husband to support their five children. Musa was powerlessly witness to her family’s slide into destitution, until BRAC gave her an opportunity to steer their course out of poverty.

Eight years and four loans later, Musa has been successful in working for herself and creating a future of her own design. With a starter loan of 8,000 Taka ($118), she bought a small patch of land, where she now grows vegetables and rice paddy, and is able to provide enough resources to feed her family and support her children’s education.

“I have a better life now,” she said. “I have a successful business, my family eats well, and everyone is healthy. My children are happier than before.”

Five Key Ways that BRAC Turns “Oppression into Opportunity” for Women, Part 1/5

"IN THE 19TH CENTURY, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape.

Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater."

Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn,
The Women’s Crusade, The New York Times Magazine special issue dedicated to "Why Women’s Rights Are the Cause of Our Time." August 17, 2009

This blog post introduces a 5 part series, Five Ways that BRAC Turns “Oppression into Opportunity” for Women

#1 Confronting Violence Against Women

Male violence maims or kills more women ages 15-45 than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined.* Violence can take many forms. Sometimes groups of people get together and take the law into their own hands. Physical punishment is often the result. Read about BRAC’s victorious public interest lawsuit to prevent women from becoming victims of informal justice.

BRAC’s Human Rights and Legal Services (HRLS) in Bangladesh is dedicated to protecting and promoting human rights through legal aid, legal representation and empowerment. Examples of legal aid cases include: protecting victims of sexual abuse or domestic violence, such as acid throwing, and protecting a women’s rights during a divorce. BRAC also conducts workshops with poor and vulnerable women to raise awareness about gender issues, human rights, existing laws and the judicial system and making governmental courts accessible to individuals.

For example...

BRAC together with 5 other agencies recently filed a successful public interest case with the High Court of Bangladesh to force the Government to take action against extra-judicial adjudication of disputes, when the local community takes the law into their own hands, usually resulting in unjust corporal punishment for the victims. This type of “justice” is a growing problem.

In June, a woman in Srimongol was lashed 101 times for speaking to a man from a different community; a woman in Sirajgonj was caned 100 times and fined for daring to file a complaint of rape with the court; a woman was whipped in public in August after refusing a relative’s sexual advances.

On August 25, the court issued an interim order upon the Government and the law enforcing agencies to investigate promptly any report received of the issuance and imposition of an extra-judicial penalty, to take appropriate measures against any person found responsible, to provide security and protection to any victim. The Court order demanded that the Government put training and long term protection measures in place.

The Women’s Crusade, is an essay drawn from Kristof and WuDunn’s forthcoming book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

* From Half the Sky, forthcoming book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

The art and science of scaling up

William Easterly posted an article on Aid Watch detailing Five simple principles for scaling up in aid. BRAC takes these principles to heart when it scaled up its own programs:

1. Scale up success not failure - Before BRAC scales up its programs, we start with small pilots and closely monitor and evaluate the progress and outcome of our work. First BRAC makes the program effective, then we make it efficient, and only then do we take it to scale.
   
   
2. Don’t scale up what you think is most important, scale up what you do best - BRAC's holistic approach to poverty focuses on the basic needs of the people in the communities it serves: microfinance, livelihood training, health, education and social development. We focus on building capacity and strengthening our current programs, making sure everything we're doing is designed to benefit the poor people we're serving.
   
   
3. You can scale up only what requires cheap, abundant inputs; you cannot scale up something that depends on expensive, scarce inputs - BRAC not only ensures that its programs are effective before scaling up, we also make sure they're efficient. We hire mostly local staff to run BRAC's programs, and most of the staff commute by bicycle or motor bike rather than by car to save on costs. BRAC always seeks to maximize the social return for every dollar invested in our programs.
   
   
4. Things that you make routine are among the easiest to scale up - BRAC's first experience with scaling up involved teaching 13 million women in Bangladesh to make Oral Rehydration mixes to prevent dehydration from diarrhea - the leading cause of death among children under 5. We simplified the formula - a pinch of salt, a fistful of sugar and a 1/2 liter jug of water - and trained rural women to teach the formula to other women in their neighborhood. Ten years later, 13 million women not only knew how to do oral rehydration, they actually used it.
   
   
5. Evaluate whether you are still successful after scaling up - BRAC's Research and Evaluation Division was set up in 1975 as an independent entity within BRAC with the mission of measuring the effectiveness and impact of BRAC's programs in improving the health and well-being of BRAC's beneficiaries. Click here to see some of their work.

Click here to read the full article by William Easterly.

BRAC Uganda intern Katherine Lewis writes about her research project on the health program in Uganda

by Katharine Lewis

BRAC Uganda Intern

Having mostly worked in Tanzania and Kenya, I felt eager and thrilled when I secured a research project for this summer with BRAC Uganda. When I excitedly arrived in Uganda in May, I was not sure what to expect. However, stepping off the plane, Uganda felt already familiar to me –inhaling the raw, earthy air brought back a flood of affectionate memories.

BRAC began working in Uganda in 2006 as an operational NGO. Currently, their Essential Health Care program seeks to increase access to healthcare and improve health conditions. The program has established 85 health offices and has trained 1,700 community health promoters (CHPs) who reach 340,000 Ugandan households.

BRAC’s volunteer female community health promoters play a central role in the health program. The CHPs have a variety of responsibilities –educating individuals about primary and reproductive health issues, increasing awareness, implementing behavioral change, to selling products below market price as needed to members.

As an added incentive, the CHPs are able to earn a small profit from of the health goods they sell. Consequently, the success of the health program heavily relies on the motivation and capacity of the community health promoters to carry out their intended actions and deliver appropriate services.

Community Health Promoters in BRAC UGANDA

While evaluation tools to monitor the CHP's work have been developed and implemented by BRAC, models targeted at the community as part of the CHPs monitoring process have not been effectively employed in Uganda. The community is an untapped, invaluable resource which has the potential to ensure the accountability of the CHPs and the success of the program.

Therefore, my research project, an exploratory, qualitative assessment sought to study two specific issues: one, the possibility of community involvement as a feasible option in the monitoring of community health promoters (CHPs) and two, the correct and transparent information flow between BRAC, CHPs, local government and the community.

My research involved an extensive background literature review on community participation strategies and a plethora of focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with community members, local government, NGOs, CHPs, and BRAC management.

Working with BRAC this summer in Uganda has further inspired me to commit myself to working in public health in Africa and has expanded my interests to include community participation strategies. I never ceased to be impressed at how well the BRAC management and employees tirelessly ran the health program and was constantly motivated by their tenacity and determination to make the program successful.

Experiences such as being invited to a local CHP’s home to casually attend a family gathering with her after a group discussion with CHPs, being surprised by the openness and frankness exhibited by the local government officials when speaking about their work, clutching the seat while riding on local motorcycles called “boda bodas” to reach rural communities, will forever be in my memory. I look forward to hearing more as the program in Uganda continues and am grateful that I was able to have such an enlightening and enriching experience.

Katharine Lewis is pursuing her Masters of Public Health from Harvard University

BRAC Intern Naishin Fu writes about water, sanitation and hygiene in Uganda

by Naishin Fu
BRAC Uganda Intern

This summer, between my first and second year of my Masters Degree in Public Health at Harvard, I spent 10 weeks working with BRAC Uganda in the Research Department.

My past experience has been concentrated in the HIV/AIDS sector and the Asia region, but I am interested in broader public health issues globally and wanted to do something completely different than I had done previously. I was excited to learn that BRAC Uganda is interested in starting a new water, sanitation, and hygiene program (WASH), as I have developed a recent fascination with the oh so glamorous world of sanitation, and needed someone to do some background research to inform program design.

Due to limited time and the backseat that sanitation usually takes in WASH work, I decided to focus my research on sanitation in Uganda. Although BRAC Bangladesh has been operating a WASH program for a few years now, an assessment of the current state of sanitation, community needs and perceptions, and appropriate technologies is necessary to develop an appropriate program for Uganda.

My research consisted of a literature review and key informant interviews to gather existing knowledge and information on sanitation, followed by field research in five BRAC branches to get community feedback. By far the field research was the most interesting, where I was able to talk to Community Health Promoters, microfinance groups, and also community members not affiliated with BRAC.

During my field work, most of the communities expressed frustrations with local sanitation, including the poor condition or lack of latrines, improper waste management, and drainage. It was something non-sanitation related that struck me the most though. While everyone was happy to share their thoughts and feelings, many were wondering what would come of all these questions, if it would result in any changes in their lives. They have become wary of researchers from NGOs because time and time again they have seen people come through, ask similar questions, and then disappear, never to be seen again. I believe that while they are willing to answer all of our questions, they do not expect any results to come of it. It is my hope that BRAC will help break this cycle of inaction and in time will be able to implement sustainable, innovative, and beneficial sanitation programs in its branches. I greatly enjoyed working on this project, and wish that I could have gone more in depth than my 10 weeks allowed. However, I do plan to use this research for my Master’s thesis, so am looking forward to working more on this topic throughout the next school year and sharing anything new with BRAC!

Microfinance group in Bugiri, Uganda

Interviewing a CHP in Bugiri, Uganda

Meet BRAC Uganda's Model Farmers

As part of BRAC's 'microfinance plus' approach, BRAC Uganda launched the Agriculture and Livestock Programs in May 2008. Agriculture is the largest sector of the Ugandan economy and the most important income source for women as an estimated 77% of women are involved in some form of agriculture. BRAC’s programs are designed to increase agricultural output and income, decrease livestock mortality and increase rural employment.

The primary outreach agents for the agriculture activities are the self-employed model farmers/agricultural workers that are chosen from among the microfinance group members. BRAC provides free training, inputs, tools and technical support to these workers. Model farmers/agriculture workers specialize in crop production, poultry and livestock farming and promote good practices to others in their communities by using their own small farms for demonstration and by assisting neighboring farmers on technical issues.

On a recent visit to BRAC Uganda I had the opportunity to meet with three model farmers. Each woman had created a successful small business and was very appreciative of the support and training BRAC Uganda has provided.

Meet Faith:


Faith was a founding member of her microfinance borrowing group and is a model livestock rearer. She has already completed four loans with BRAC which have helped her purchase additional cows for her small farm. She has also received technical support from BRAC Uganda which she shares with other livestock rearers in her village.

Meet Zawedde:

Zawedde is a BRAC model farmer and cultivates crops including maize, tomatoes and beans. As a BRAC model farmer, she receives free seeds, technical support and farming equipment. Last year BRAC Agriculture workers advised her with her maize crops and this year they have advised her how to use an unproductive portion of her land to cultivate beans.

Meet Kabatooro:

Kabatooro is a BRAC livestock volunteer worker and has purchased three cows with her BRAC microfinance loans. She now has a total of eight cows which produce surplus milk that she can sell to her neighbors. Kabatooro is eager to utilize BRAC’s Artificial Insemination services to continue to grow her business.

As of July 2009, the BRAC Uganda’s Agriculture Program has provided training and support to 800 agriculture volunteers and 14,726 general farmers. BRAC Uganda’s Poultry and Livestock Program has provided training and support to 800 volunteers and 43,509 general rearers.

Happy's Story

Happy is a member of one of BRAC's clubs for adolescent girls in the Dodoma region of Tanzania. At 21, she is the oldest member of the club.

“I enjoy being able to teach other members of the club from my experience,” she explained.

The girls meet six days a week (every day except Sunday) from 3-6 pm to play games, read and share stories, and discuss important issues like health and gender equality.

One issue that Happy is particularly passionate about is HIV/AIDS prevention. Both her sister and a close friend of her family died from complications due to AIDS, so she is very engaged in the discussions about adolescent and reproductive health.

In a few months, the girls in Happy's club, as well as all of the clubs in Tanzania, will be given the opportunity to take livelihood training courses, where they can learn a profession of their choosing so they can generate income for themselves and their families.

When the livelihood training classes are offered, Happy looks forward to learning tailoring. She aspires “to be a successful tailor and a good mother [when I have children].”

Soon after the classes are finished, Happy and her fellow club members will be able to form village organizations and take out microfinance loans to support their business endeavors.

Click here to learn how your can support Happy and other adolescent girls in Tanzania.

BRAC Intern Elly O'Rourke Writes About Conducting a Market Assessment on Low Cost Sanitary Napkin Production in Uganda

by Elly O’Rourke
BRAC Uganda Intern

After working in the private sector for 6 years, I started my MBA at Duke with an aim to be involved in international development through profit-generating social businesses. In my summer at BRAC Uganda, I worked for the Research & Evaluations Department on the market assessment of low cost sanitary napkin production in Uganda. This was a perfect experience to pair along with my studies of social entrepreneurship and finance at school.

Through conducting focus groups and interviews with microfinance borrowers and adolescent girls in the Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents (ELA) program and secondary schools from eastern, western, and central Uganda, I collected qualitative (and some quantitative) information on the consumer demand of low cost sanitary napkins. In Uganda, sanitary napkins are imported from other countries and too expensive for most women below the $1.25/ day poverty line to afford. Women often resort to the use of bark cloth, banana leaves, rags, newspaper, or toilet paper to control the menstrual bleeding. The local production of cheaper sanitary napkins will not only provide income generation for the factory workers and the community health promoters, but also improve the health outcomes of women in Uganda.

BRAC has a successfully operating sanitary napkin production center in Bangladesh. The organization is now conducting market research and analysis to set up a similar social enterprise in Uganda.

Reflections on Afghanistan: Part 3/3

This is part three in a three-part series by BRAC USA President & CEO Susan Davis reflecting on her visit to BRAC’s programs in Afghanistan.

I was accompanied by male staff so the women always wore their bright blue burkhas. I was so curious how it felt to be under one. To see what they see when draped in cloth. Of course these good humored curious women got a kick out of dressing me up in one of them. For me, it sure didn't feel like freedom to have one more layer on top of me in that heat. But many women explained how it protects them and gives them freedom to move about more easily. The lens of our own culture can distort the true picture and not allow us to comprehend how relative everything can be.

The rest of my trip was as eventful and rewarding as the beginning. I saw BRAC schools and met with parent teacher associations and school management committees that BRAC has formed. I visited health clinics that were packed with women waiting to see a doctor or nurse. I remember a pharmacist who lost a leg to a landmine. He was so grateful to have his job that his work mitigated the consequences of his disability.

It was rewarding to see how BRAC programs in microfinance, health and sanitation, education, adolescent development, agriculture and livestock and social and capacity development had touched the lives of thousands of people, giving them chances for a dignified life and a more secure future for their children.

The work of BRAC Afghanistan is featured in September's O Magazine in an article by Nicholas Kristof. To learn more about BRAC's work in Afghanistan, click here.

BRAC will also be featured in the forthcoming book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Knopf), by husband-and-wife Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn that will be published September 10.

Reflections on Afghanistan: Part 2/3

This is part two in a three-part series by BRAC USA President & CEO Susan Davis reflecting on her visit to BRAC’s programs in Afghanistan.

Poverty and stigmatization are among the greatest obstacles towards the realization of the Afghan people’s bold dreams. I was glad to discover during my travels in Afghanistan that a mood of despair was giving way to hope and determination. People around the country are working to rebuild their lives and to lift themselves out of poverty.

BRAC loans provide families with support to start small business and generate income. I met many borrowers from BRAC’s microfinance programs. At the time, all the borrowers were women and they were all convinced life was better for them now than during the Taliban. They were less afraid and had more freedom, more to eat and opportunities to send their children, especially their daughters, to school.

One very thin poor woman was a weaver. She proudly showed her handloom. Another mother and daughter used their loan to buy a sewing machine. Their neighbors made school bags. I visited several modern beauty shops which seemed to be thriving. I met a local baker who made bread over a traditional stove. In the countryside, women borrowed money to develop small agricultural plots, and poultry and livestock businesses. They were raising fruit tree saplings and growing vegetables.

The work of BRAC Afghanistan is featured in September's O Magazine in an article by Nicholas Kristof. To learn more about BRAC's work in Afghanistan, click here.

BRAC will also be featured in the forthcoming book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Knopf), by husband-and-wife Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn that will be published September 10.

Reflections on Afghanistan: Part 1/3

This is part one in a three-part series by BRAC USA President & CEO Susan Davis reflecting on her visit to BRAC’s programs in Afghanistan.

“I want to become a dancer…in New York,” said the girl with dreamy eyes. Dressed all in white, she was sitting with perfect posture in a defiantly confident pose.

In another setting her statement would sound like an ordinary ambition for a teenage girl to have. But there, in BRAC’s classroom in Afghanistan, among teenage and adolescent girls wrapped in headscarves who were experiencing school for the first time, her statement sounded as a bold and defiant battle-cry.

The room burst with giggles. I was astonished and amazed that this girl who had never seen professional dancers, much less New York, had dared to dream beyond her ken. I was also convinced that she'd probably do it.

Education was going to be her passport out of that village, out of an arranged marriage to an older man before she was 18 and 4 or 5 children by 25. Her fate was not yet sealed as it had been for so many others. She seemed so determined, so hopeful. She was ready for a struggle for a life more beautiful, full of love and freedom, where she could express the uniqueness of her soul and character through her passion for dancing.

I carry her with me as I watch the news of conflict in Afghanistan. I balance the gloomy news by recalling her shining face and the incredibly warm and uplifting documentary “Afghan Star. ” This film tells the story of the making of Afghan television’s version of American Idol. Audiences of this film are left with a totally different representation of the country. Afghanistan is not just about bombs, bare mountains, conflict and misery. It’s also about young Afghan men and women who have given wings to their aspirations and dreams.

The work of BRAC Afghanistan is featured in September's O Magazine in an article by Nicholas Kristof. To learn more about BRAC's work in Afghanistan, click here.

BRAC will also be featured in the forthcoming book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Knopf), by husband-and-wife Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn that will be published September 10.