Making preventing maternal mortality within reach

This post was also featured on The Huffington Post blog.

While the UN says that the world is on track to reach the first Millennium Development Goal of cutting poverty in half by 2015, progress toward goal #5, to reduce maternal mortality by 75% by 2015, remains the target for which progress has been most disappointing. While there is progress, as highlighted by the Lancet's recent estimates of falling maternal mortality rate, which is worth celebrating, the sense of urgency has not, and should not, abate.

According to Karl Hofmann's recent article in the Huffington Post, with an additional $10 billion annually by 2010 and $20 billion by 2015 -- there is just enough time to achieve MDG 5. The G8 summit gets underway today in Muskoka, Canada, is timely in that a focus of the summit is a new G8 initiative -- conceived and led by Canada -- to improve maternal, newborn, and child health in poor countries. With almost $3 billion already pledged by the Canadian government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, more commitments are expected from G8 partners for what is now being called the Muskoka Initiative.

Click here to read the dull article in The Huffington Post.

BRAC's SoFEA girls have big dreams

Below is a post written by Kevin McCaffrey after visiting BRAC's SoFEA program for adolescent girls in Bangladesh.  In May, Kevin and his staff came to conduct a creative writing workshop with one of the girls' clubs.  Results from the workshop will be developed into a children's book, with some of the proceeds from the book sales benefiting BRAC.

During the last week of May, I conducted a creative writing workshop with members of BRAC’s Social Organization for the Empowerment of Adolescents (SOFEA) program. I was struck by how motivated and confident the 22 young women in the workshop were. They had big dreams for the future and I have no doubt that is because of the encouraging atmosphere created by BRAC’s community centers that provide safe spaces and role models for young women across Bangladesh (and now around the world). BRAC is a wonderful example of an organization that is successfully empowering women and girls around the world. By don’t take my word for it. Here are a few excerpts from essays written by the participants:

Noorbanu: My parents and I have the same dream which is for me to become a lawyer. I hope that I am able to give myself a beautiful life. I want to study and do big things. I hope when I am grown up I am able to take care of my parents.

Anjuman: When I grow up, I want to be independent I want to be a doctor. I want to spend my life helping others. I want to stand by them in their times of need. I want to help people with something with which they can earn a living.

Rehka: I want to be a doctor. But I don’t just want to be a doctor, I want to be a poet too. I will practice medicine and alongside I will write poetry. That is my biggest dream.

Bokul: What I hate the most is when differences between boys and girls are highlighted. I’m not sad that I am a girl, but many people in this society to make me feel bad about it. They keep thinking girls are weak, helpless. This belittling attitude towards girls I find very hurtful. . I want to finish my education and be independent. My father wants the same. That’s why he never says no to anything. In fact, he encourages me.

To learn more about the project, visit their website or read their blog.

Social Entrepreneurship Book Release!

"Order this book and read it immediately...This book gives you some great ways to understand and apply the whole idea of entrepreneurship/social entrepreneurship." --Tom Suddes, The Suddes Group, ForImpact.org

Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know, written by BRAC USA's CEO, Susan Davis and social innovation writer, David Bornstein was released in April 2010. We at BRAC could not be more excited about the book's release.

It is a must read for anyone interested in social enterprise and international development. Whether you are deeply familiar with the field or exploring it for the first time, the book proves insightful. Through a Q&A format, the book provides a straightforward overview of the operational areas of the development field. It makes key distinctions between social enterprise, traditional business ventures and the non-profit sector. Furthermore, the book outlines the current challenges faced within the field. A great resource for familiarizing oneself with the organizations that comprise the international development landscape, it is firmly grounded in concrete examples of social enterprises that operate in various parts of the world.

The book concludes with suggestions about how each one of us can become a successful changemaker. The social enterprise field is growing tremendously and as the title indicates, this book contains the information that everyone needs to know. 

Click here to order the book on Amazon.com.

No Woman No Cry Trailer

Get your Masters in Public Health from BRAC University

BRAC University James P. Grant School of Public Health (JPGSPH) is accepting applications from International students for its 7th Master of Public Health (MPH) Program.

Designed to be innovative, embracing international standards, utilizing state-of-the-art methods and techniques of teaching, learning, and providing opportunities for hands-on field experience, the School offers a unique Master of Public Health (MPH) programme with students and faculty recruited from Bangladesh and abroad. Previous and current students are from 19 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Americas.

Comparative advantage of BRAC University's MPH Program:

• Location in a developing country providing a social laboratory for public health teaching and learning;
• Emphasis on community-based experiential learning with the first six months conducted in a rural setting;
• Placement in a development organization (BRAC) with a track record of accomplishment in promoting social goals of poverty alleviation, which bridges the artificial divide between health and development;
• Partnership with the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b);
• Partnership with BRAC, which offers opportunities for learning and career development in Bangladesh and throughout Africa and Asia;
• Partnership with other internationally recognized schools of public health in both developed and developing countries that enables access to the rich academic resources of the collaborating institutions as well as exposure to the global health agenda.

Click here for more information about the James P. Grant School of Public Health's MPH Program and to apply or download the flyer (PDF).

BRAC USA intern Sun Woo Koo writes his story

My name is Sun Woo Koo, and I am a foreign student who recently graduated from NYU Stern School of Business undergraduate program. I majored in Finance and Economics. My story that leads to BRAC starts from the 2 years I took off from my college education to serve in the army of the Republic of Korea. This break helped me stop flowing reluctantly into the path where everyone seems to go and revaluate my purpose in life. One day in the base, I realized that what I really want to do is to solve problems of the world with colleagues who are forerunners of innovation and creativity. This initial dream led me to the concept of “Social Enterprise” which soon narrowed into the concept of “Microfinance” which is a perfect fit to both my specialty and passion. After the discharge and during the first class back in NYU, I had chance to hear from Susan Davis and about her life in BRAC. I felt all the puzzles coming into the exact spot and I started to see a glimpse of my future.

Long story short, I am now an intern in BRAC USA moving forward to make my dream come true. This is an organization that truly appreciates innovation and creativity. Its holistic approach to alleviate poverty touches every corner of an individual who desperately needs help. Here in the center of New York City, I see the success story of BRAC in Bangladesh spreading into the continent of Africa, Asia, and South America. At the wake of era of social enterprise and microfinance, BRAC is the most pioneering institution that has set a higher standard for all other institutions in economic development. I am very fortunate to be part of BRAC and to learn from the people devoted to both excellence and social good. I hope to bring the lesson I am learning in BRAC back to my country and challenge our leaders and institutions to leverage our genius to solve the problems of the world.

BRAC Uganda’s new Youth Loans on Kiva

Below is a post from James Allman-Gulino, a Kiva Fellow working with BRAC Uganda to upload BRAC's new loan product for adolescent girls to the Kiva website.

Starting this coming week, BRAC Uganda will begin posting a new loan product onto the Kiva website.  This new product will fund borrowers in BRAC Uganda’s Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents (ELA) program, and gives Kiva lenders the chance to invest in an exciting new sector within microfinance.
These new ELA loans are unique because the borrowers are actually adolescents, usually young women aged 16-21 who have dropped out of or never attended school.  Many of these borrowers are too young or lack the minimal collateral needed to participate in traditional microfinance, so the ELA loans offer them a unique way to access capital and become economically productive at an early age.  These “youth loans” can serve as a stepping stone that encourages the borrowers to seek more capital in the future, and to expand their businesses into larger enterprises that provide great benefit to the young women and their communities.

ELA livelihood training on hairdressing

Another important part of the ELA program is that it doesn’t simply disburse loans; just providing first-time adolescent borrowers with loan capital could be risky for obvious reasons.  Instead, these loans occur in the context of a holistic program.  First, all ELA borrowers are part of an ELA “club,” which is comprised of 20-40 members in villages throughout Uganda.  The clubs provide a variety of services for the members, including educational materials and discussions on societal and health issues.  Those members interested in obtaining loans must first participate in livelihood training, which provides the participants with skills in income-earning activities.  Clubs’ livelihood trainings are preceded by market assessments which examine local villages’ economic climates and tailor training accordingly.  This helps ELA borrowers’ first businesses to be successful, well-run, and likely to succeed in the local community.  Finally, ELA borrowers must receive financial literacy training, which familiarizes members with concepts of profit, savings, and budgeting, helping ensure that borrowers can use loan capital responsibly.

ELA members beginning financial literacy classes

These trainings all help to empower ELA borrowers with the knowledge they need to start successful business, despite their young age.  ELA microfinance loans then serve as a sort of capstone to the program, enabling borrowers to put all their knowledge to use and create businesses that will benefit themselves and their families.  These are the loans that Kiva lenders will now be able to fund!  ELA borrowers on Kiva will be posted as individual loans, with a typical loan term of 40 weeks; repayments and journal updates will occur just as they do for regular loans.

Kiva and BRAC Uganda are excited to offer this new opportunity to Kiva lenders, and hope that the Kiva community will be eager to fund the new ELA youth loans.  I’ve visited several ELA clubs in the field, and have been very impressed with the trainings that the borrowers receive and the professionalism which they all run their businesses with.  If anyone has any questions on the new loans, please feel free to leave comments and I’ll try to respond.  Look forward to the ELA loans going up on the Kiva site sometime in the next week – they’ll be posted on BRAC’s fund raising page, so keep checking on it!

Click here to see the original post on the Kiva blog.

BRAC Intern blogs from Bangladesh

Annie Escobar is an Intern with BRAC's Human Rights and Legal Services department in Bangladesh. Below is her introductory post for her internship in Bangladesh.  Be sure to check out her blog for more stories about her experience with BRAC and some amazing photos.

Life is incredible. The past few weeks were absolute madness as I juggled preparing for this trip, shooting a wedding and jewelry line, babysitting, and relishing the time I had with Ethan. Hence why no blogging occurred before I left. But I sit here now, on a slow but steady computer in the BRAC center, on my first morning in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I will be here for 65 days until August 9th, interning with the organization BRAC. Together with my partner Patricia (who I will go pick up from the airport in a few minutes), I will be creating a web-based storytelling platform for several deparatments in BRAC, all based around Social and Legal Empowerment . This will highlight the stories of hopefully ten women whose lives have been impacted by their programming. The more I learn about BRAC, the more amazed I am that I have the opportunity to work with them.

BRAC is the largest NGO in the world, created by a Bangladeshi man named Fazle Hasan Abed in 1972. They are a development organization that has combined a grassroots mentality while at the same time achieving scalability at an incredible level. They have shown that the drivers of development in poor countries must not inevitably come from abroad. The facts are unbelievable: Four million children (70% girls) have graduated from BRAC's primary and preprimary schools. Millions have benefited from their health centers and workers, including 70,000 community health volunteers. Perhaps what they are most known for are their microfinance initiatives, which in 2008, loaned more than ONE BILLION DOLLARS. What really makes BRAC unique in their approach to microfinance is their belief that credit alone is not enough, especially where physical and economic infrastructure is weak. BRAC creates forward and backward supply chain linkages to support the enterprises created through microfinance. This means creating the infrastructure to ensure that enterprises succeed.

For example, to assist village chicken rearers, BRAC developed a system for poulty vaccination, chick rearing, feed production and chains of feed sellers and egg collectors (creating jobs for village women). BRAC has replicated this idea of linkages in social forestry, silk production, fisheries and prawn cultivation. BRAC operates a stunning range of institutions/enterprises including a bank, a university, a housing finance corporation, tea companies and feed mills. BRAC is even installing a wireless broadband technology which will transform education and communication by trasmitting wireless data over long distances. Through this approach, BRAC has created millions of jobs around the world, and uses earnings to support their other programs. Because of this, only 20% of BRAC's budget comes from donor funds, making it an incredible example of financial sustainability. Yet because their model is so self-sustaining, they have had little need to invest large amounts in international fundraising efforts. The resulting disconnect is unfortunate- they are making a huge impact around the world, yet the story of the work that they are doing (and perhaps more importantly, the way that they are doing it) is not well known. I want to change that.

BRAC is not Grameen. BRAC is about the development of the whole person. Their rights based approach, looks at both supply and demand of rights. They create demand among the rural poor for their rights by making them aware of their rights and entitlements and building leadership & institutional capacity. They help increase the supply of rights by making the government more responsive to the needs of the poor and marginalized, developing capacity of local govt representatives, and creating direct linkages between the rural poor and local government.There is no hierarchy of rights (economic over social etc), they are all intimately interlinked. They have several departments making a huge impact. I really appreciate that they look at the systems of structural violence that deny the poor their rights and entitlements. They are working to enhance the social and human capital of poor women and marginalized people so they are aware of their rights, empowered to claim entitlements and able to resist exploitation. The Social Development Program is working to promote social mobilization and collective action as well as strengthening local governance to make it more pro-poor, accountable and transparent. One way they do this is through the creation of community based institutions called Polli Shomaj, which are a meeting place for members of the community (mostly women) to gain strength from collective processes and articulate and address the problems of their communities. With 9,324 groups all over the country, they are having a tremendous impact.


Their Human Rights and Legal services program has 9,000 shebikas, or 'barefoot lawyers', who are the frontline soldiers for human rights around the country. The shebikas teach legal education classes and refer human rights abuses to BRAC's free legal aid clinics, where survivors receive free resources (like housing, treatment and other social services) representation. I am honored to work with them, and I cannot wait to see their impact in the flesh.

Running out of time now... so much more to say, got to run to the airport. more later!

Click here to read more from Annie's blog.

Tanvi Vattikuti: BRAC USA Intern

My name is Tanvi Vattikuti and I am thrilled to join the BRAC USA team as an intern in the Summer 2010. As an individual who is deeply passionate about effecting social and economic change in impoverished and underprivileged populations, I find BRAC to be an inspiring organization.

In my personal travels, I have been devastated to see the extreme poverty in which people live. It is particularly poignant when contrasted with the living standards of developed countries. While in India in 2005, I had the opportunity to visit villages in which microfinance loans were in place. It was my first encounter with both international development work and microfinance and it left quite an impression. I was immediately intrigued by the apparent effectiveness of the microfinance model but I remained curious as to how one can create a model that effects both economic and social change.

While studying Politics at New York University, I began to contemplate how an individual can most effectively contribute to the global battle against extreme poverty. This contemplation and subsequent research led me to BRAC. BRAC has succeeded in creating models to effect both economic and social change. I am in awe of the organization’s holistic approach to poverty alleviation and by the scalability and sustainability of BRAC’s model. I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to contribute to an organization that touches so many lives. I am excited to see the impact BRAC USA has upon BRAC International as domestic awareness of BRAC’s operations grows.

Exploring maternal mortality with Christy Turlington Burns

I recently spoke on a Council on Foreign Relations panel on maternal health after a special screening of the film ‘No Woman, No Cry’ directed by Christy Turlington Burns and produced by Dallas Brennan Rexer. The film shows the dangers of childbirth when adequate medical care is unavailable. The film extraordinarily captures the real time drama of giving birth. It is a deeply affecting film, which makes the viewer aware of the high risks of procreation, particularly when coupled with poverty.

Through excellent choice of music and footage, the film is able to create a mood from the very start and quiet one’s mind. It begins with a series of clips from home videos of Christy Turlington Burns obviously shot by her filmmaker husband Ed Burns. I was immediately captivated by the intimate images of Christy - a supermodel even more beautiful in all her pregnant glory. In one scene, she flashes a playful smile at the camera while proudly showing off her pregnant belly. In another scene, she shyly pulls her shirt down as she notices her pregnant belly peeking out and I feel as though I am privy to intimate moments.

Completely engaged in this relationship between mother and her unborn child, I find myself in the delivery room with them, excited as I see this new being brought into the world. Suddenly, my stomach lurches and in the delivery room there is a palpable sense of panic as Turlington Burns begins to hemorrhage. Her doctors immediately rush to remedy the problem and thankfully they are successful. Amazingly, her filmmaker husband continues to film throughout the ordeal. It is not only a pivotal point in the film but also in the life Turlington Burns as she realizes that she could have suffered the same fate as so many women around the world if she did not have access to medical care.

According to the World Health Organization, 99% of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries where mothers often do not have access to proper medical care. Turlington Burns highlights this severe problem as she documents the experiences of pregnant women in Tanzania, Bangladesh, and Guatemala. The relationship between poverty and the risk of maternal mortality becomes evident in the film. In Tanzania, transport is highlighted as a major barrier. Turlington Burns drove one woman thirty-five miles to the nearest hospital so that she could deliver her baby in safe and sanitary conditions. In Bangladesh, she follows Monica, who is ready to give birth any day along with her BRAC Community Health Volunteer, Yasmin, who both live in Korail, the largest slum of Dhaka. They’ve traded cell phone numbers and been in regular touch over the course of the pregnancy. The plan was for Monica to give birth in one of BRAC’s safe birth huts located in Korail. In the middle of the night, Monica goes to the safe birth hut but due to complications must be transferred to a hospital in Dhaka. The film presents a poignant juxtaposition. As Turlington Burns emphasizes, she was fortunate enough to have adequate medical care. Other women and their families are not so lucky. The experience of Turlington Burns is not so different from that of a soon to be mother in Guatemala.

The film demonstrates that the issue of maternal mortality persists globally, even in the most advanced societies. In an interview with the family of an American woman who died during childbirth, the tears of the husband who lost his wife emphasize the heart wrenching impact that maternal mortality can have on families everywhere. In this way, the film functions as a strong call to action. It challenges the viewer to contemplate how he or she can contribute to the global campaign to reduce maternal mortality. Every minute a woman dies from a pregnancy related complication but 90 percent of these deaths are preventable.

The film was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York where all five screenings were sold out. The film was shown at the Women Deliver Conference in Washington D.C. this week. It is an incredibly accessible film that has the ability to elicit empathy regardless of gender, age, nationality or profession because we, as viewers, are able to share in the universal experience of birth. While awareness is the first step in the battle for maternal health, I strongly encourage you to see the film when it is released to the general public and visit www.everymothercounts.org to see what you can do.

Girl-Power in Rural Bangladesh on the Rise

Published on News Blaze.

By Kavita Charanji, Womens Feature Service

In a small room in Khilbarirtek village in the impoverished Badda thana area (sub-district) of Dhaka district, Bangladesh, a group of excited adolescents - 28 girls and two boys - are engrossed in playing indoor games. Some are busy with Ludo, while others are concentrating hard to come up with winning moves on the chessboard. All the children are between 11 years and 19 years of age.

A little later, they finish their games and organise themselves into groups to participate in a lively discussion on the topic of the day - which can be anything from domestic violence to the environment. This is followed by a relaxing game of volleyball.

Meet the young members of Kishori (Adolescent) Club, an initiative that is part of BRAC's Adolescent Development Programme. These youngsters may have spent their formative years crushed under the burden of drudgery, but now thanks to the Kishori Clubs (KCs) they have an opportunity to broaden their horizons with the help of books, games and discussions. Says teenager Ayrien Akhter, a member of the Khilbarirtek KC, "We don't get the chance to play such games or read at home so we thoroughly enjoy ourselves here."

BRAC - believed to be the largest NGO globally - runs 8,600 KCs across Bangladesh. Housed in tin-roofed BRAC school rooms or rooms rented out by the local community, KCs are run after school hours. Club members meet twice a week for two hours and their activities are conducted by a trained girl who is still in her teens.

Tania Akhter, 19, is the leader of Khilbarirtek KC. She takes immense pride in her position. "I am responsible for operating the club. I open the club, display the books and magazines and hand out the games. It gives me the opportunity to spend my leisure time productively and also make lots of friends," she says.

Supervisor Jasmine Akhter, 28, oversees 13 KCs in eight villages in the Badda thana area. A resident of Jamalpur, she undertakes an arduous bus commute to Khilbarirtek only because she enjoys her work immensely. She says, "It is very satisfying to meet such bright youngsters. I also enjoy talking and working with the community people."

Apart from KCs, which play an important role in promoting leadership skills among adolescents, BRAC's Adolescent Development Programme (ADP) includes other initiatives. There's the Adolescent Peer Organised Network (APON) course that covers vital social, health issues and imparts life-skills such as decision-making, negotiation, effective communication and problem solving. The course is open to all KC members, teenage boys and girls in secondary schools and even those teens who are working. One trained adolescent facilitates the course.

Livelihood training, conducted as part of ADP, enable girls to learn skills for income-generating activities, including rearing poultry and livestock, tailoring and embroidery, sericulture, photography, journalism, beauty care and even driving.

Of course, there's also the element of community participation, although this has been the toughest to achieve. Initially, it was difficult to get parents, local leaders, religious leaders and local government officials to understand the benefits of ADP. But that attitude has undergone a change. Rashida Parveen, 45, a manager at ADP, says, "Although there was a problem in the early years as we were dealing with conservative communities in rural areas and even in towns such as Cox's Bazar and Sylhet, once we had explained the benefits of ADP, they were more responsive."

A sit-in at a community meeting in Khilbarirtek demonstrates the high level of involvement that the local stakeholders now have in the workings of ADP. Gathered at the Union Parishad (the local government institution) office, Parishad chairman Mahfuzur Rahman, along with community leaders, school teachers, BRAC health workers and parents, has just finished seeing a multi-media presentation of BRAC's six-month plan for tackling issues such as family planning, child marriage, safe delivery and steps for the smooth running of the KCs.

The community members are only too willing to open up and discuss the benefits of BRAC's ADP. Rahman says, "Adolescents form 22 per cent of the population in Bangladesh. It is, therefore, important for them to be aware of vital social issues because they are the future citizens of the country. With the involvement of the community, the project will have a greater impact."

Another keen supporter of the programme is Abdullahin Kafi, a teacher at a secondary school in the village. Says Kafi, "The women are not very forthcoming and we still need to mobilise them and the community at large." He is also keen that the ADP is extended to schools. A first step, he suggests, should be to hold a workshop on ADP with teachers and other stakeholders.

Other community members, eager to share their views on the activities of the ADP, say in unison: "We want girls to know about important social issues. We didn't realise the importance of these subjects earlier, but now we discuss these issues openly and want to know more about them."

The ADP, which was launched in 1993, is a major success and has had a positive impact even in far-flung villages. Sixteen-year-old Pushpa Rani Das became a member of Rishipare KC in 2007. After receiving APON training, she and her husband Ram Charan Das jointly decided that they would postpone having a child until Pushpa turned 19. Her angry in-laws put up stiff resistance to their decision but once they talked to other KC members and the leader of the club, they changed their minds. Pushpa is now a literate and confident woman thanks to the extensive reading material she has access to at the KC.

Several youngsters like Pushpa and Ram have benefited from ADP. Evolving gradually over the years, the ADP has introduced many new initiatives like the Interactive Popular Theatre, APON Talent Hunt Show, disaster risk reduction and response, adolescent fairs, special networks for adolescent photographers, and 'Amader Abhijan' through which the information and skills they acquire are disseminated to a larger number of adolescents and community members.

Moreover, their special sports initiatives have been responsible for resurrecting many a childhood. Today, much to their delight, the young ones are adept at playing games like football, cricket, volleyball, badminton and kabaddi. An important introduction has been swimming lessons aimed at reducing child mortality. Young people are also trained as community swimming instructors who, in turn, teach safe swimming to thousands of children. Under the ADP's sports for development intervention, girls' football and cricket teams have been set up.

While there have been many success stories for the ADP, the only problem encountered has been the conservatism in some rural areas. ADP has had to contend with stiff resistance from powerful fundamentalist group in areas like Bhola, in south Bangladesh. "We are trying to involve the community through regular workshops. The girls would love to sing and play games but cannot because of community pressure," reveals Rashida. Nevertheless efforts continue apace.

And it is certainly a measure of the success of this programme that it is now being replicated in countries that have witnessed rising fundamentalism, including Afghanistan, Uganda and Tanzania.

Womens Feature Service covers developmental, political, social and economic issues in India and around the globe. To get these articles for your publication, contact WFS at the www.wfsnews.org website.

BRAC Bank among the 2010 FT Sustainable Banking Awards Winners

Last week, BRAC Bank in Bangladesh was awarded the Emerging Markets Sustainable Bank of the Year Award for the Asian region.

Now in their fifth year, the awards recognize banks and other financial institutions that have shown leadership and innovation in integrating social, environmental and corporate governance considerations into their operations.

"Broadening financial services to the poor and helping to raise living standards around the world is good for business and good for the global economy," said Lars Thunell, IFC Executive Vice President and CEO.

Click here to read more about the award and the gala dinner.