The following review of Freedom From Want was posted by Dale Adams on the Development Finance Network Discussion list. Thanks, Dale!
The following new book is a super read: Ian Smillie, Freedom From Want: The Remarkable Success Story of BRAC, The Global Grassroots Organization That's Winning the Fight Against Poverty, Sterling, Virginia: Kumarian Press, 2009.
It is one of the most interesting books on development I've read the past few years -- it is extremely well written. It made me wonder if Smilie was an English major. His writing is crisp, warm, and engaging. I especially liked the way he briefly described the personal lives of the main players in BRAC.
In the 1970s I met Fazle Hasan Abed, the founder of BRAC, during one of my assignments in Bangladesh, but I didn't think or read much about BRAC thereafter. Smillie's book educated me on the breadth and depth of BRAC's development activities. It is impressive and quite different from the dominant model used in the microfinance industry.
Five aspects of the BRAC story are particularly interesting:
First, BRAC uses a holistic approach to development. Microcredit is just one arrow in their quiver. They do education, health, business development, deposit mobilization, and a lot of other stuff. Their activities range from dairy product plants, to a bank, and to a University. All this made me wonder at the audaciousness of their reach. How can one leader and one organization successfully manage so many diverse activities? I would have been amazed if they had only developed a poultry industry, let alone all the other successful enterprises under the BRAC umbrella.
Second, Abed recognized that microenterprises don't produce many new jobs or products. As a result, he promotes small businesses. I especially related to the following comment in the book: "The engine (of development) had to be new productive enterprises -- people moving beyond the kiosk economy and what had sustained villages in the past. It required people producing....and definitely producing new things."
Third, applied research is a major part of their program. They do something, then they study what was done, and then adjust their programs accordingly.
Fourth, the book made me appreciate leadership. One has to be amazed that people like Abed and Yunus can develop and manage huge organizations that deal with the poor, and that are efficient and free of corruption, in a sea of corruption orchestrated by inept politicians. Why don't some quality people such as Abed float to the top in the political system in Bangladesh? Its a sad commentary when NGOs have to fill the gap in poverty alleviation left by inept governments.
Finally, Smillie provides brief descriptions of the extension of BRAC's activities into other countries: Afghanistan and Tanzania. It will be interest to see if their methodology has legs in other cultures.................................lizzy borden.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Update on BRAC in Haiti
Below is a letter to our supporters from BRAC USA President & CEO Susan Davis.
Dear Friend,
I want to thank you for your support of BRAC after the earthquake in Haiti. I was truly touched by the immediate and generous response that BRAC and its partners in Haiti received after the devastating earthquake. Did you know that any donations you gave for Haiti relief between January 12 and March 1st count toward your 2009 tax return?
As an organization born in the wake of natural disaster and war, BRAC sees the immediate need to engage the people of Haiti in rebuilding their country and their own lives and livelihoods. On February 12, BRAC International Executive Director Aminul Alam traveled to Haiti with two Haitian-Americans, who we engaged to work with us in Haiti, to meet with our partners and strategize how BRAC can best support the people of Haiti in the aftermath of this disaster.
When I met with Amin after his trip, he was confident that Haiti needs BRAC's programs to support its short term relief and rehabilitation as well as long term development. In speaking with the people of Haiti and our partners on the ground, we've identified and are acting on priorities where BRAC has had experience and success in getting people back to work.
Reviving a struggling agriculture industry
The earthquake in January created an impending food crisis in Haiti, as many farms have been destroyed and urgently need to be repaired and given inputs for the upcoming planting season in March, which accounts for 60% of national food production.
BRAC has more than three decades of experience running agriculture, poultry and livestock programs and has created more than 3.5 million livelihood opportunities in this sector. We're sending expert BRAC staff to set up programs to improve and scale up the agriculture, poultry and livestock sectors in rural Haiti through research, training and cash-for-work projects.
Scaling up programs for extremely poor women
BRAC has been working in partnership with Fonkoze, the largest microfinance organization in Haiti, to replicate its ultra poor program, which aims to provide support to women in the poorest 10% of the population, providing them with assets, training and support to enable them to build livelihoods.
A successful pilot was recently completed, and we are now working with Fonkoze to scale up the program to reach even more of the poorest women and their families in Haiti and put them on a ladder to opportunity.
Supporting the injured
It's been estimated that 8,000 people had to have limbs amputated as a result of injuries sustained in the earthquake - you may have read about this in an article that recently appeared in The New York Times.
To provide these people with the opportunity to rebuild their lives, BRAC is setting up a limb and brace center, a replication of a social enterprise we've been running for more than 10 years in Bangladesh. We hope to provide braces and limbs to 6,000 Haitians who've been affected by the earthquake.
Providing a second chance for education
Even before the earthquake, education levels in Haiti were extremely low, and even a child who was lucky enough to attend primary schools was likely to drop out before 6th grade. The destruction brought on by the earthquake has made primary education even more difficult to attain.
BRAC has been running "second chance" schools for older children who have dropped out of school or who never had the chance to go in the first place since 1985. We are sending expert BRAC program staff to strategize setting up primary schools for out-of-school children in Haiti.
The success of our programs is a result of the support we receive from people like you, so I want to thank you again for your contributions during this very important time. We will continue post updates of BRAC's work in Haiti on our blog.
With best wishes,
Susan Davis
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Community Health Workers in Afghanistan - BRAC Volunteer Drew Kinder Reports from the Field
Drew Kinder, a long-time volunteer and friend of BRAC, first in Uganda, recently volunteered with BRAC's programs in Sri Lanka and Aghanistan. Below is a post from Drew's blog about Community Health Workers in Afghanistan.
“Nay, Nay, Nay” four burqa clad Community Health Workers exclaimed in unison when asked if they do it for the money. With faces hidden behind traditional hijabs, their passion was clear. “We do it for God,” said one. “When our people are free from disease, we are free from disease.”
Community Health Workers in Parvan Province
When BRAC came to Afghanistan in 2002 it was the first NGO to widely use female Community Health Workers (CHW) where literacy was not mandatory. Lessons learned from this experience contributed to the adoption of female CHWs in Ministry of Public Health policy. It is estimated that 33% of all CHWs currently in Afghanistan have been trained by BRAC.
Community Health Workers (65% female) are generally selected from the community they serve. Each CHW is responsible for delivering basic health services to 100-150 households (containing 1,000 to 1,500 inhabitants total). They visit 5-10 homes a day for 15-30 minutes each.
CHWs perform the following services on their house-to-house visits:
- Health and nutrition education
- Treatment of common ailments
- Non-clinical family planning methods distribution
- Identify Suspected TB patients
- Implement DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment Shortcourse) for TB
- Distribution of oral rehydration supplies and iodized salt
- Mobilize children for immunizations (EPI, Expanded Programme on Immunization)
- Education about health and hygiene
- Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) and diarrhea medicine
- Referring complicated diseases to other medical professionals
- Distribute personal hygiene products, ex. tooth paste, sanitary napkins, etc.
BRAC Community Health Workers receive two levels of training. Their initial training lasts for a total of 8 weeks to teach the CHWs basic preventive and curative diseases and to perform standardized CHW services. CHWs also receive monthly refresher training at a fixed facility near their home.
CHWs are volunteers. They are incentivized for various services, such as attending monthly review meetings ($2 US), reporting a suspected TB case ($1), and completing TB treatment ($3). They also distribute heath care products, which they receive free and then sell at a 25% mark-up over BRAC’s low wholesale cost.
The story of Farida is typical of the thousands of Community Health Workers trained by BRAC.
Farida in Balkh Province
“I first met Taman when I was a new Community Health Worker and he was only 15 months old. He had pneumonia. A mullah told his mother he would recover, so she refused my advice to take him to the hospital. He was much worse when I visited the second time. This time I convinced his mother, and doctors at the hospital saved Taman’s life,” Farida says.
“From then on people in the village followed my advice,” she says.
Farida has been a BRAC Community Health Worker in the city of Balkh, Afghanistan for four years. She refers patients to a BRAC managed District Hospital.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Help BRAC fight poverty in Africa with the Causeworld application
Citi announced today that it will expand its support of shopkick, Inc.'s successful CauseWorld application by providing an additional $350,000 in financial support for CauseWorld causes. Citi's total contribution now stands at $700,000. About half has already been given to the causes by Citi on behalf of CauseWorld shoppers.
Citi also announced that the CauseWorld application would add two microfinance organizations – BRAC and ACCION USA – to its cadre of causes to which shoppers with the app may now donate.
ACCION USA brings affordable microfinance solutions to small business owners. It funds microcredit loans and financial education programs that help American small business owners grow and thrive.
CauseWorld users will be able to donate to BRAC and ACCION USA immediately.
- Users download the free app on their iPhone.
- Collect karmas, the currency created from sponsorship money from Kraft Foods and Citi, by visiting participating retail locations.
- Spend karmas on real world charitable actions like planting trees, feeding the hungry and providing clean drinking water.
- Charities carry out the actions.
- Publish on Facebook to show friends and family.
- Build up a profile with icons showing all your karma expenditure.
- Earn badges and level up by earning more karma,
The CauseWorld App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone or at www.causeworld.com/iphone.
About Citi
Citi, the leading global financial services company, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 140 countries. Through Citicorp and Citi Holdings, Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management. Additional information may be found at www.Citigroup.com or www.Citi.com.
shopkick is a new Menlo Park-based startup funded by Kleiner Perkins's iFund and Reid Hoffman, founder and Chairman of LinkedIn, and investor in Facebook. shopkick, Inc. was founded based on the belief that the intersection of mobile and physical retail is the next big opportunity in mobile to create consumer value. The Silicon Valley-based company's goal is to drastically improve the shopping experience of consumers by utilizing cell phones' location awareness, unprecedented personalization capabilities, and social/viral features. shopkick launched its mobile application CauseWorld in the United States in December 2009, supported by Citi and Kraft Foods. The shopkick team consists of mobile and web experts who previously built the mobile division of CBS in Los Angeles, and successful mobile and online ventures in Europe and the U.S. (12snap, GoldPocket Wireless, Loopt, CommerceFlow, Rojo), and from Google, TellMe/Microsoft, and Procter & Gamble.
ACCION USA is a leading U.S. microfinance organization that provides access to capital and financial education to low- and moderate-income individuals, primarily minorities and women. A pioneer and recognized leader in U.S. microfinance, ACCION USA empowers individuals to create sustainable businesses, increase family incomes, and contribute to the economic development of cities across the U.S. Since inception in 1991, ACCION USA has provided over $119 million in small business loans ranging from $500 to $50,000, offered nationwide via the ACCION USA online lending platform. For more information about small business loans, visit www.accionusa.org.
About BRAC
BRAC, an international development organization, was founded in Bangladesh in 1972 by Fazle Hasan Abed. Today, BRAC has grown to become the world’s largest NGO employing more than 120,000 people, the majority of which are women, and reaching more than 110 million people with development interventions in Asia and Africa. Since 2002, BRAC has been using its experiences of innovating and scaling up multifaceted anti-poverty programs to energize and accelerate poverty alleviation efforts in other countries. Currently BRAC has country programs in Afghanistan, Liberia, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Southern Sudan, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and Uganda, and is beginning programs in Haiti. BRAC also provides support to other NGOs in Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Peru. BRAC USA is an affiliate office of BRAC that engages volunteers, supporters and other resources to further BRAC’s vision of a world free from all forms of exploitation and discrimination where everyone has the opportunity to realize their potential.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Busy health workers at 2am
“I did not have a job before joining BRAC. Now I am a Health Worker with BRAC in Sahiwal. I joined BRAC to give service to humanity” – Nasreen, a newly recruited Health Worker with BRAC Pakistan’s Health Program in Sahiwal, Punjab.
“Mothers come to me even at two o’clock in the morning,” says Farkhanda, a Health Worker (HW) with BRAC’s Health Program in Sahiwal, Pakistan. The BRAC Health Program in Pakistan is still very new – the program in Sahiwal began only in the fall of 2009, but it already covers 9000 households.
BRAC has conducted extensive door-to-door surveys in the target communities, recruited HWs like Farkhanda, and created a team of Health Volunteers (HVs). Each HV lives in proximity of the households they cover, and she visits them door-to-door and serves them inside their homes.
Farkhanda tells us “Now we have 60 Health Volunteers, each covering a cluster of 150 households. They know each household well, from their routine door-to-door visits to each home once to twice a month. Often the locals come to the homes of the Health Volunteers (HVs), which is easy because each HV has a BRAC signboard prominently displayed outside their home.”
The HVs and HWs were given extensive technical and field work training in October so as to equip them to deliver quality services to the community. They are knowledgeable and equipped to address many common illnesses that can be treated effectively with common medicines. They are also educated on many basic health matters, such as sanitation, family planning, ante/post natal care, vaccinations, respiratory and stomach illnesses. They attend regular refresher courses to stay current on new health matters.
As HVs have become the first point of contact for reporting any health problem in the households of the local community, they are also the first and primary source of new health information. For example, the government campaign against malaria and polio that began just before year end came to be known to the community first through the BRAC HVs that regularly serve them. BRAC adopted the messages in the government’s malaria and polio campaigns and educated the members on these diseases through door-to-door visits to members, and at the community health forums.
Similar to what BRAC health volunteers successfully do in Bangladesh and other countries,
HVs in Pakistan will begin selling basic health products to the households under their coverage in January 2010. Examples of such products to be sold include oral rehydration salts, sanitary napkins, condoms, cold and fever medicines, and other common medicines. This gives the HVs opportunities to earn income for their work, and effectively turns their homes into mini-dispensaries in an area where such dispensaries are sorely lacking.
Shaheen did not know about BRAC until a HV came to do household surveys in her community. She is a teenager and was already pregnant with her first child when she initially met her community’s Health Volunteer. “I would not have learned what I’m learning now about antenatal and prenatal care without my BRAC HW and HV. I am very close to them. Maybe I could have learned the same things from TBAs, but they are few in number, and are not very knowledgeable. I am learning new things, and this is very helpful. The Health Forum meetings are only a five-minute walk from my home. After I give birth, I also want to become a BRAC Health Volunteer.” Her mother-in-law is also working as a volunteer with the BRAC Health Program.
With so many health messages being projected to the community by health forums and household visits by the HVs and HWs, are people learning what is being taught? “Yes” says Farkhanda, one of six HWs in Sahiwal. “We are overwhelmed with questions from the mothers, so definitely they are actively learning.”
There are also signs of women taking collective action based on what they are learning. Farkhanda says “Recently, women that we work with from one neighborhood decided to clean on their own the streets and gutters of their slum. It’s the government’s responsibility but they don’t do it, so the women did it on their own because they know from BRAC how important hygiene and sanitation is.”
Promoting family planning is still a challenge. “In Sahiwal, about 40% of families still resist family planning” Nasreen says. “Their negative attitudes to family planning come from not knowing the choices that are available. We try to educate them about the various family planning alternatives and the benefits of each to the families. We also use religious arguments in support of family planning. Our religion says maternal health is important. The religious books say that a child needs to be breast-fed for at least two years and six months before the mother gives birth to another child. Therefore, Islam tells us that family planning is essential.”
“Providing members with necessary unfamiliar medicines is sometimes difficult too” says Nargis, a HV that works under Nasreen. “Some people say that medicines cause people to get sick. We know that medicines can have side effects, but we talk to them about people they know who became healthy after taking medicines when they were sick.” The medicines provided by our BRAC health volunteers are all selected and suggested by the Registered Medical practitioners. The side effects of such medicines are minimal, and they are informed to the patient before consumption.
Speaking about her job, Farkhanda says “Before I became a HW, I was a teacher. I also have two children at home. I joined BRAC in September to get trained as a HW, and now I love my job. My husband is also very happy with the job I do with BRAC.”
Just before year-end, BRAC Pakistan launched the same health program in the Nowshera district of North West Frontier Province (NWFP). In an area like NWFP where the society is very conservative, the need for women’s empowerment is even greater. With recruitment and training of HWs and HVs complete, BRAC is working to build trust, educate, and create awareness about the health program and the benefits and opportunities it has for them and their families.
BRAC Pakistan’s expanding its health program, especially in a high-risk area like NWFP is a great motivating factor for the staff. “My family was opposed to my decision to join BRAC. They wanted me to take a stable government job. But I took the BRAC job because my heart wants to be in the service to the people,” says Muhammad Luqman, a Regional Health Coordinator for BRAC Pakistan’s health program.
- Malik Rashid
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Girl Effect at work
I was in Bangladesh just last month, visiting a number of BRAC programs. One that I visited was an adolescent program in Kushtia, a small town five hours outside the capital city. My parents are from Kushtia, hence the reason for my visiting a BRAC program there. My Irish-American wife came too.
I had some time to speak to the girls in the program. I asked them what are some of the things they learned. One girl was very quick in responding. I regret to say that I don't remember her name, but let's say her name is Runa. She said that under-aged marriages are bad, and that girls should not be married before 18. Runa then went on to describe a recent case where she had to deal with this issue.
There was a another girl in Runa's village who was about to get married off by her mother. This girl was not even close to being 18. Runa told me that she and her friends marched to the home of this girl's mother, explained to the mother that underaged marriages are bad, and persuaded her to cancel the marriage.
I was absolutely stunned when Runa told me this story. It's Girl Effect at work, thanks to BRAC's Adolescent Program in Kushtia. Confident girls like Runa can change entire societies in countries outside Bangladesh where we operate, like Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.
I had some time to speak to the girls in the program. I asked them what are some of the things they learned. One girl was very quick in responding. I regret to say that I don't remember her name, but let's say her name is Runa. She said that under-aged marriages are bad, and that girls should not be married before 18. Runa then went on to describe a recent case where she had to deal with this issue.
There was a another girl in Runa's village who was about to get married off by her mother. This girl was not even close to being 18. Runa told me that she and her friends marched to the home of this girl's mother, explained to the mother that underaged marriages are bad, and persuaded her to cancel the marriage.
I was absolutely stunned when Runa told me this story. It's Girl Effect at work, thanks to BRAC's Adolescent Program in Kushtia. Confident girls like Runa can change entire societies in countries outside Bangladesh where we operate, like Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.
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