Two distinguished members of the House of Lords, Britain’s Upper House of Parliament, Baroness Pola Uddin of Bethnal Green and Lord Nazir Ahmed of Rotherham, visited BRAC programmes in Korail slum in Dhaka today.

In Korail, they first visited a BRAC micro-finance group meeting in progress and saw some of the income generating activities of the borrowers, such as a grocery store run by a member and her son. They then visited a BRAC health forum where the topic of discussion was the care of pregnant women. Baroness Uddin and Lord Ahmed were then taken to a BRAC birthing centre which provides a safe and clean environment for assisted births with a trained midwife. They also visited a BRAC Primary School located in the slum where they enjoyed musical performances by the children.

From Korail, the Baroness and Lord Ahmed paid a short visit to the Stranded Pakistani Camp in Pallabi, where they spoke to some BRAC borrowers residing there.

During the visit, Mr. Fazle Hasan Abed, Founder and Chairperson of BRAC, Mr. Shabbir Ahmed Chowdhury, Director, Microfinance and Dr. Kaosar Afsana, Health Programme Coordinator, accompanied the guests

Baroness Uddin and Lord Ahmed both expressed great amazement at the range and scale of development interventions being operated by BRAC in Bangladesh. They expressed their enthusiasm at the recent expansion of BRAC’s activities to several countries in Africa and pledged their full support of the initiative.

During their stay in Dhaka, the Baroness and Lord Ahmed are expected to meet members of the caretaker government and leaders of the major political parties. They are also scheduled to visit Sylhet.

Baroness Uddin is the first and only person of Bangladesh origin to become a member of the House of Lords.

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