06 October 2012, Madrid, Spain. On October 5, 2012 Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder of BRAC, one of the largest development NGOs, gave a lecture at IE School of Arts & Humanities, in which he analyzed the key issues in poverty alleviation. BRAC currently operates in 10 countries in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, and its work touches the lives of an estimated 126 million people. Sir Fazle Hasan Abed was joined by Arantza de Areilza, Dean of IE School of Arts & Humanities, and Javier Gila, President of the Asociación AIDA – Ayuda, Intercambio y Desarrollo.

In 1972, Bangladesh was the second poorest country in the world. Back then, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed created BRAC with the aim of improving people’s living standards and education. In order to do this, BRAC focused its work on marginalized groups, especially women, who, in the words of Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, “tend to have fairly realistic outlook on situations”. As an example of best practices, BRAC promoted the intervention of experts by interviewing mothers in order to understand the reasons behind such a high mortality rate in Bangladesh. The findings concluded that most children died due to dehydration caused by diarrhea. BRAC also implemented a plan to promote ways to reduce the country’s high birth rates. To do so, it was crucial to know and understand the “beliefs, wishes, and thoughts” of the population, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed recalled.

In addition to reducing infant mortality and fostering ways to lower Bangladesh’s high birth rates, over the past decades, BRAC has also played an active role in the field of education, key factor in a country’s socioeconomic development. Moreover, BRAC runs one of the largest private school systems in the world, with over a million students. During his lecture at IE School of Arts & Humanities, Sir Hazle Hasan Abed pointed out that, “at BRAC schools, students learn to think”. BRAC has also established a joint program in Education and Leadership with Columbia University geared toward Bangladeshi government officials. Sir Abed likewise insisted in the importance of promoting community development, “empowering those in need so that they can find solutions to their own problems”.

Finally, BRAC has also established a financial institution focused on financing small and medium enterprises. BRAC Bank has grown to become the fifth largest bank in Bangladesh. Sir Fazle Hasan Abed closed his lecture by saying that, “to me business opportunities exist only if they entail improving, developing, or helping someone or something”.

18 September 2012, Dhaka. Twenty one trained women drivers received certificates from the Communication Minister, Obaidul Quader MP, on the occasion of “Promoting Women in Driving Profession” event held on September 18, 2012. This successful first batch of BRAC driving school has finished a rigorous eight weeks of residential driving training and is now ready to be employed.

Congratulating BRAC on this initiative, the minister said “These certified trained female drivers will face no problem in getting employment as Nitol Niloy group has already agreed to recruit them along with BRAC”. Director of BRAC Procurement, Estates and Management Services, Mr Ahmed Najmul Hussain, mentioned in his keynote presentation that research conducted by BRAC shows 42 percent of the drivers know the basic traffic regulations , whereas 41 percent actually follows them. Identifying the huge lack of properly trained drivers in the country he mentioned, “BRAC will train 400 instructors and 600 female drivers through this driving school project with the support of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA)”.

Additional Inspector General of Police, Mr Nazmul Haque, and Chairman of BRTA, Mr Md Ayubur Rahman Khan, was present at the event as special guests.  Group CFO of BRAC Mr Shib Narayan Kairy, and Senior Director Mr Asif Saleh spoke among others. The event was chaired by Managing Director of BRAC investments, Mr Muhammad A (Rumee) Ali.

BRAC’s first-ever Facebook competition is officially over! Congratulations to our winner, Daniel Ng from the University of Virginia on his ‘Play’ Project– a community playground project with the objective of creating safe accessible spaces for underprivileged children to play.

“Wow, thank you so much for choosing me! I feel so honored and fortunate and excited to be able to work with such a renowned organization as BRAC,” says Daniel. “I had no expectations of winning since I knew I was competing against very qualified and remarkable people. I still can't believe I won.” Daniel is a freshmen who’s interested in studying Global Development and Statistics.

A special mention goes out to our runners up; Maya – a community empowerment project for women, and Amadeyr Cloud’s  digital content delivery project.

In January, we received over 40 submissions from around the world and finally narrowed it down to seven best innovations with potential to be implemented at BRAC. We convened several internal judging panels to make our final decision. The winner gets the unique opportunity to work with BRAC’s Social Innovation Lab in Bangladesh. We thank all our participants for their submissions and look forward to organizing similar projects in the future.

“This was our first attempt to organize a Facebook contest and the response was great! The quality of the submissions we received was very impressive,” stated Mr. Asif Saleh, BRAC’s Director of Communications and the Social Innovation Lab. “We look forward to having similar events in the future to not only foster innovation, but get people thinking more seriously about some of the social problems we face today.”

04 September 2012, Dhaka. On Thursday, 16 August, the government of Sierra Leone declared the cholera outbreak a national humanitarian emergency. A presidential taskforce was established shortly after the declaration. As of 24 September, Sierra Leone has recorded over 14,000 cases and 240 deaths in 10 out of 13 districts.

BRAC has taken up various measures to ensure full assistance to the affected and distraught in Sierra Leone. In collaboration with the country's district health management teams (DHMT), we are providing the necessary support to disseminate cholera prevention messages through our network of 660 community health promoters (CHP) and 33 programme assistants in the Western area, Port Loko, Bombali, Tonkolili, Bo, Kenema, and Kono districts.

We are providing approximately SLL 43 million (USD 10,000) as cash grant for immediate emergency support and mobilising our human resources to provide the DHMTs with the following services:

• Promoting and distributing oral rehydration solution (ORS) aqua tabs and disinfectants through the CHPs
• Arranging regular health meetings in communities to influence behavioural change
• Providing refreshers training on cholera preparedness to the CHPs who are assisting to disseminate cholera prevention messages
• Providing DHMTs with necessary tools and supplies such as, IV ringers lactate, ORS, Doxacycline capsules, zinc and disinfectants

The DHMTs have requested for further assistance from BRAC in raising community awareness in distant chiefdoms to ensure a greater coverage.   

"In this critical time, we remain committed to doing our best to help the government of Sierra Leone contain the epidemic by mobilising both human and additional financial resources, and using our knowledge in dealing with communicable diseases through a community-based approach," said Faruque Ahmed, Senior Director of BRAC International.

BRAC started its operation in Sierra Leone in 2008, and has reached over 700,000 Sierra Leoneans with activities in microfinance, agriculture, livestock, poultry, health and legal services. We are a global leader in creating large-scale opportunities for the poor, touching the lives of an estimated 126 million people – a global movement bringing change to 10 countries in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.
 
Help us address the humanitarian emergency in Sierra Leone by making a donation at http://www.brac.net/donations/view