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An Evening with BRAC Hosted by the Global Healing Foundation

Allan and Clare Rosenfield have long been devoted supporters of BRAC and their vision to advance the well being of the poorest people in Africa and Asia, particularly of women and children.

Nick Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn’s new book, Half the Sky prominently features the story of BRAC USA’s founding Chair, Allan Rosenfield, a doctor who put the M in MCH –Maternal Child Health and championed women’s rights and empowerment. Even in the last years of his life, he dedicated his time and energy to take BRAC USA to new heights.

Allan Rosenfield’s wife, Clare Rosenfield opened her home and heart on Wednesday evening to friends and colleagues so that they could learn about BRAC and support its work. Through the Global Healing Foundation, Clare organized a special evening, involving a screening of New Horizons, a ten-minute introductory video on BRAC and Peter Buffett’s original song, Set Us Free with music video shot while visiting BRAC’s program for teenage girls in Bangladesh.

After viewing both videos, Allan and Clare Rosenfield’s son, Paul said, “I’d always heard about BRAC but now I understand why it’s so important.”

Watch these videos right here:

A New Horizon



Set Us Free

BRAC receives award for Social Performance Reporting

BRAC received the 2009 silver award for Social Performance Reporting.

The award was launched by CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor), the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, and the Ford Foundation, and powered by MIX (Microfinance Information Exchange).

The award is designed to promote greater transparency in Microfinance Institutions’ social performance and recognizes transparency in social performance reporting.

Click here to read the MIX Press Release.

BRAC Uganda reaches 100,000 microfinance borrowers in less than 3.5 Years

Sarah Mukama, living in Mawuba village close to town of Bugembe, today became BRAC Uganda’s 100,000th borrower. Sarah became a BRAC member in August 2009, and today she borrowed 250,000 Ugandan Shillings (US $130), which she intends to use to buy insecticides and fertilizers for her crops. Sarah cultivates tomatoes, beans and some coffee. She also rears pigs and a cow. Through the income from these activities, she supports a family of seven, including five children.

Dr. Fazle Hasan Abed, the Founder and Chairperson of BRAC disbursed BRAC Uganda’s first ever loan in June 2006 at the Iganga branch. The first borrower, Wamulo Ruth, borrowed 200,000 shillings (US $100) to buy maize, rice and beans from farmers and sell them to restaurants and eateries in the area. With the support from BRAC Uganda, she has grown to become a restaurant owner herself. Ruth continues to be a BRAC borrower, and is currently in her fourth loan of 1,000,000 shillings (US $ 500), five times the size of her first loan.

BRAC Uganda has set a remarkable record by reaching 100,000 borrowers in less than 3.5 years since that start of its microfinance operations in Uganda in June 2006. With an average annual borrower growth rate of 139%, BRAC Uganda is in the company of other rapidly growing microfinance institutions in world. It took SKS Microfinance (which is widely regarded as one of the fastest growing MFIs in the world) more than 6 years to reach 100,000 borrowers, a feat achieved by BRAC Uganda in almost half that time.

BRAC Uganda’s success was possible due to the dedication, hard-work and commitment of the staff in Uganda and also due to the leadership and vision provided by BRAC’s senior management team in Bangladesh. Mr. Aminul Alam, Executive Director of BRAC International together with Dr. Imran Matin, Deputy Executive Director of BRAC International has closely overseen and directed BRAC Uganda’s growth over the last four years, enabling the organization to grow at a remarkable pace.

This morning, Sarah was pleasantly surprised to realize that she was BRAC Uganda’s 100,000th borrower. She and a few other borrowers were waiting at the BRAC Uganda branch office at Bugembe to receive their loans, when Mr. Ariful Islam, the Country Program Coordinator of BRAC Uganda walked into the branch office. He personally disbursed Sarah’s loan and congratulated her for becoming BRAC Uganda’s 100,000th borrower. Sarah was thankful for the support that BRAC Uganda was providing her and mentioned that her dream was to see her children become managers at BRAC Uganda.

John Pamba, Public Relations Manager for BRAC Uganda visits BRAC in Bangladesh

Below is a post by Lars Zwaanenburg, a BRAC Intern in Bangladesh from Michigan State University about his interview with John Pamba, Public Relations Manager for BRAC Uganda during his recent visit to BRAC's programs in Bangladesh.

I got a chance to meet and have a short conversation with John right before he left for Uganda. He discussed his reasons for joining BRAC and shared his experiences about the visit.

Prior to joining BRAC in 2006, John worked for the Government of Uganda for 22 years. He willingly decided to resign from his post with the desire to be involved with an organization through which he could better serve his fellow countrymen.

Soon afterward, he heard about the foreign NGO that wished to establish itself in Uganda from a former colleague. He was hired immediately by BRAC Uganda’s Public Relations department due to his previous experience with the Government. His responsibilities at the time mainly involved disseminating information about community-based BRAC programs to Government agencies. John faced several challenges in the process of introducing the new organization along with its unfamiliar - holistic approach to development to the local Ugandans and getting their immediate support.

According to John, “Seeing is believing,” and so his visit to BRAC Bangladesh strengthened his belief in the organization. Through this trip, he gained a fuller understanding of how all the BRAC programs operated and witnessed the social impact and successes BRAC has achieved through decades of hard work and persistence.

John was convinced that after having witnessed the scale at which BRAC performs in Bangladesh, he will be able to better express his conviction to Ugandans and ultimately gather greater local support for BRAC in Uganda.

His trip to BRAC in Bangladesh became a valuable learning experience for him. He was happy that he could share tips and extra advice from the BRAC staff in Bangladesh.

After returning back to Uganda, John expressed his interest in investing his efforts to promote and expand BRAC’s programmatic areas in various other parts of Uganda. He also wants to improve the benefits and facilities for the BRAC staff in Uganda.

Planning for a lifetime: the gift of education for BRAC Scholarship program students, Part 5/5

This post is the conclusion of a 5 part series, in which BRAC volunteer Nilopar Uddin tells the stories of three of this year’s BRAC Scholarship program students. Each student, with BRAC’s support, has succeeded in securing a place at India’s top Rajastan University and is preparing to embark on an exciting and ultimately life-changing journey, led by the power of education.

BRAC's Scholarshp program is behemoth in its span: in 2008 it donated funds to 18,000 boys and 22,800 girls. My meetings with the program's participants left me feeling overwhelmingly inspired. I have always seen education as a powerful tool, even in my own upbringing, but to see what it has done and will continue to do to the lives of these three girls has renewed my faith in it with vigour. The possibilities are limitless. BRAC is anxious to increase the number of scholarships, increase the number of sponsor organizations and individuals and to form an alumni of community of graduates.

As I gushed about the program to Fazle Abed Hasan, the Founder and Chairperson of BRAC, he smiled and waited for me to finish. With his next words, he flabbergasted me with how creative and inspirational his approach truly was. “I am thinking,” he said somberly, “of establishing a boarding school for the best of the students”. He went on to tell me his plans for the school; how it would hoist the future of 300 of the highest achieving students by giving them educational support in an academic setting from a young age.

Mr. Abed has hit on one of the potential weaknesses of all educational grant programs: some of these families are so poor that their children will pass the scholarship money on to them instead of utilizing it for educational purposes. BRAC’s Scholarship for the undergraduate students, such as Sukla, Roziana and Depthi, covers roundtrip transportation, passport/visa costs, tuition, board, medical insurance and pocket money. There is a possibility that much of the money that the girls could spare would be given to their poor families at home. It is also possible that students who are receiving money for private tuition are under pressure to save some for their families.

His idea iss a way to address this problem. It is also a way to mentor and develop student's abilities so that they can compete successfully in the application processes of the world’s elite universities. Of the second set of BRAC Scholarship program students, 122 were admitted into institutions of higher education. Of this group, 42 were admitted to Bangladesh’s public universities and 10 to universities in India.

“Why not Oxford?’ Mr. Abed beams at me, “why not Harvard?” I beam back. Its hard not to be contaminated by the sort of inspiration that can change lives for the better, forever.

Meet BRAC Scholarship Program Student: Depthi Khatun, Part 4/5

This post is part 4 of a 5 part series, in which BRAC volunteer Nilopar Uddin tells the stories of three of this year’s BRAC Scholarship program students. Each student, with BRAC’s support, has succeeded in securing a place at India’s top Rajastan University and is preparing to embark on an exciting and ultimately life-changing journey, led by the power of education.

Depthi and her mother

Depthi is 19 years old and she plans on studying accounting at Rajastan University. Of the three students I met, she is by far the poorest. In fact there were no roads that led to her house, only a mud path and as a result we walked almost 8.5 km round trip to see her. As I walked, feeling grumpier as every kilometer passed, it suddenly occurred to me that she must make this challenging journey to school every day, even in the monsoon rains. Needless to say, my grumpiness was stopped in its tracks.

Her mother was cooking a leafy vegetable based brew outside on a mud stove when I arrived. Depthi and her mother had been deserted by Depthi’s father years earlier. After he sold their home and gave much of the proceeds to Depthi’s sisters, both Depthi and her mother were forced to move in with them. With little means of income generation, they now depended on the little support that Depthi’s sister’s husband, a day laborer, could provide.

During my visit Depthi and her mother seemed very shy. The struggles of their daily life were apparent all around us, but Depthi's mom told us that she hoped Depthi used this opportunity to do very well for herself. After learning more about BRAC's Scholarship program and its amazing participants, I am confident this will be the case.

Meet BRAC Scholarship Program Student: Rozina Khatun, Part 3/5

This post is part 3 of a 5 part series, in which BRAC volunteer Nilopar Uddin tells the stories of three of this year’s BRAC Scholarship program students. Each student, with BRAC’s support, has succeeded in securing a place at India’s top Rajastan University and is preparing to embark on an exciting and ultimately life-changing journey, led by the power of education.

Rozina (second from the left) and her family

Rozina is 20 years old and will soon be heading to Rajastan, India to study for a bachelor in business administration. She is the eldest of 5 children. Her father is a tailor with a small shop in the village and her mother is a housewife. Her favorite subject is accounting and her future career goal is to help poor people through social work.

Roziana’s family is so poor that she was forced to live at her grandparent’s home for 4 years after completing Class 6. They were not able to help her financially but they provided a place to live while she attended the nearby BRAC school. She explained that without the BRAC scholarship, she would not have had the money to continue her studies. With BRAC’s help she has been able to excel academically, especially with regard to her English language skills.

Roziana’s mother is extremely proud of her daughter; however, her happiness is mixed with worries about the future of the family and how they will get by. She hopes her daughter will study hard and earn a good salary. She recognizes that BRAC has provided a way to help her family to survive financially and ultimately elevate themselves out of the cycle of poverty.

Roziana’s mother emphasized this by revealing that she wanted her daughter to take on the traditional responsibilities of the eldest son rather than the eldest daughter by supporting the family financially. It is clear that Roziana’s family is depending on her, but it also apparent that by providing educational opportunity BRAC is helping to bring about female empowerment at home.

Roziana’s grandmother asked if she would see her granddaughter in the next four years while she studied. She seemed concerned that she would be seeing less of Roziana, but smiled, shaking her head from side to side as she softly confirmed her faith that BRAC had her granddaughter’s best interests at heart.

Meet BRAC Scholarship Program Student: Sukla Sarkar, Part 2/5

This post is part 2 of a 5 part series, in which BRAC volunteer Nilopar Uddin tells the stories of three of this year’s BRAC Scholarship program students. Each student, with BRAC’s support, has succeeded in securing a place at India’s top Rajastan University and is preparing to embark on an exciting and ultimately life-changing journey, led by the power of education.

Sukla Sarkar from Shailakupa in the Janaida district of Bangladesh, is an 18-year-old cricket fanatic. She lives with her parents, grandmother, uncle and younger brother in a small, dimly lit house located off a busy town road. Sukla is preparing to leave her home for Rajastan, India where she will pursue a bachelor degree in business administration. She wants to be a Banker.

In addition to cricket, Sukla is extremely passionate about the English language and in fact insisted on speaking English during our meeting. She giggled about how her fellow students called her “Dictionary” because she had devoured the Bengali to English Dictionary and has mastered an extensive library of words and phrases. She is in fact so enamored with the language that she has decided to only listen to the cricket commentary in English and often speaks to her family in English, even though they don’t understand. She claims that this has helped her learn to speak and pronounce English words more clearly and fluently. When she is not studying, Sukla helps her mother and grandmother with the housework.

When I asked her about going to University in a different country, she remained silent for a moment, a silence that was conspicuous in a girl so full of chatter and optimism. “I hope to make friends with other students who are English-speaking like yourself”, she responds with a smile. Although she describes herself as a “poor girl from a very poor country”, Shukla does not seem too concerned by the new and challenging experience that lies ahead. She knows she will be fine and she will embrace the opportunity by focusing on her studies.

Sukla’s family is very supportive of her, as well as extremely proud of her achievements. Her little brother aspires to follow in her footsteps and ultimately become a doctor. He is well on his way as he has already been selected to receive a local scholarship. Sukla’s parents and grandmother also expressed the enjoyment they get from Sukla’s success. Her grandmother reminisced that when her son, Sukla’s father, was young he also had a great desire to study and improve his living conditions, but his dreams failed to materialize due to the families financial limitations. She pointed at Sukla and observed that she was happy that her son's child was now living his dreams.

After speaking to Sukla’s mother, it was easy to see where her daughter had inherited the limitless reserves of positive energy and enthusiasm. Her mother was tearful, as she narrated her own story: her father’s death when she was a child resulted in her lack of an education because she was married off at the age of 13. She is extremely happy that Sukla is able, through the help of BRAC, to have such a good education. When asked what she would like Sukla to do in the future, Sukla’s mother replied without hesitation that she would like Sukla to help the poor and needy.

Sukla’s father, when asked if he was proud of his daughter, nodded and smiled slightly. The contrast between father and daughter was immense; he was quiet and she was outgoing and cheerful - but the pride and affection between them was strong. Through her, he was able to see his own youthful dreams materialize and undoubtedly his dreams as a father were coming true.

BRAC's Efforts in Relieving Food Insecurity

Last week The New York Times reported on concerns among the global scientific and development communities that the world is losing its battle against hunger. While an effort is underway to increase food production by 50% over the next two decades, many believe this goal is not feasible relative to projected population growth and the amount of fertile land available.

The number of hungry people around the world rose to 1.02 billion this year, or roughly one in seven people, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Over half of the world's hungry live in Asia and the Pacific regions. Augmenting the problem are uncertainties as to what effect global warming will have on food production.

With its innovative and holistic approach toward poverty alleviation, BRAC is addressing this urgent problem by improving the harvests of poor farmers. BRAC targets mostly landless and marginal land owning households in Asia and Africa as prospects for programs in agriculture and livestock rearing. It strategically engages low-income women in agricultural activities that include poultry and livestock rearing, vegetable production, and livelihoods in the fishing, sericulture, crop farming, and social forestry.

BRAC provides training and technical assistance to its microfinance borrowers as well as improved inputs: chickens that lay 6 times as many eggs, cows that produce 3 times as much milk and rice seeds that have a 20% greater yield. BRAC has also created social enterprises that spans the value chain, from a bull station that provides semen for villagers to employ themselves by impregnating cows to a dairy that purchases milk from rural villages to process and sell on the market.

To date, over 2.1 million people in Bangladesh have participated in BRAC’s agriculture and livestock programs. These efforts have proven so effective that the government has adopted a similar livestock development model for widespread implementation.

In addition to expanding food production, these activities provide empowering opportunities for poor women while promoting organic agricultural farming, all of which contributes to the global imperative to fight hunger with an eye toward sustainability.

Click here to read The New York Times article.

Nicholas Kristof Advocates Schools Over Troops in Afghanistan

BRAC is referenced in Nicholas Kristof’s October 28, 2009 New York Times Op-Ed column “More Schools, Not Troops” as a Bangladeshi civil society group that has not only led the charge in Bangladesh for female education and empowerment, but has utilized educated Bangladeshi women to achieve its development goals.

In this column Kristof specifically explores the benefits of investing in education versus military buildup in Afghanistan. He states:

“…there is still vast scope for greater investment in education, health and
agriculture in Afghanistan. These are extraordinarily cheap and have a better
record at stabilizing societies than military solutions, which, in fact, have a
pretty dismal record.”

Since 2002, BRAC has established 3,627 community based schools that currently enroll 94,543 students and have graduated nearly 143,000 students. BRAC has also established 131 Adolescent Reading Centers to provide educational materials and training to over 3,400 adolescent girls after they complete BRAC Afghanistan school courses. Moreover, BRAC trains its own teachers and develops its own teaching materials, which are provided to students free of charge.

In the spirit of the on-going transformation in Bangladesh, BRAC remains committed to working with the Afghan Ministry of Education and other NGOs to continue improving the quality of education and in the process prove that Kristof's plea for schools is a truly effective means for creating change.

Click here to learn more about BRAC's work in Afghanistan.

Water World: Is a coastal catastrophe approaching, and what should we be doing about it?

According to PBS NOW reporter Maria Hinojosa, 20% of Bangladesh could be under water by 2030

Watch this segment on PBS's NOW to learn more about the challenges that BRAC members in Bangladesh are facing.

Look for the cameo appearances of former BRAC Intern and Blogger, Maher Sattar, who worked on the NOW production team.

When Cyclone Aila hit Bangladesh's low-lying coastal belt and parts of eastern India on May 25, 2009, we had a preview of the disasters that climate change will bring to the country. Sea (saline) water inundated a large part of the region and will take an estimated six to seven months to recede completely.

BRAC is using this as an opportunity to help the victims rehabilitate their livelihoods through the adoption of new technologies and to learn how to respond to similar events in the future.

Salt Tolerant Rice: BRAC has distributed 15,000 kg of two types of salt tolerant high yield variety of rice seeds.

Fish Cultivation/Crab Fattening: BRAC determined that a special variety of tilapia cultivation and crab fattening could help to restore the livelihood of the Aila-affected population where the agricultural lands are still inundated. The beneficiaries were given a grant of Tk. 15,000 ($219) each to cultivate fish (e.g. Genetically Modified Farm Tilapia-GIFT) and culture crab in pens (about 1,000 sq ft or 110 sq m) in their submerged rice lands. These farmers cannot grow rice, as their lands are inundated by saline tidal water. It is one of our objectives to explore whether we can utilize the brackish water as a resource and address food security and restore livelihood through this field demonstration / experimentation. Those who do not possess any land for rice cultivation, crab fattening or fish culture, were given an opportunity to make the pens for fish/crab culture to sell to farmers and fishers in their commmunity. This training was given to 110 people .

Developing BRAC’s Emergency Response Capacity In Bangladesh: This month BRAC launched a new initiative to build its capacity in Bangladesh to respond to emergencies effectively, save lives, mitigate losses, empower communities to prepare and be first responders to disasters, and give people the tools to move more quickly into recovery mode.

Planning for a lifetime: the gift of education for BRAC Scholarship program students, Part 1/5

There is a Chinese Proverb that says, “If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people”.

BRAC’s holistic approach to poverty alleviation is a function of such beliefs, and BRAC’s education program in particular, is an example of a development tool that promotes advancement over a lifetime. Education can be a means of transcending social class and economic boundaries as it has the power to lift future generations out of poverty and disenfranchisement. Within BRAC’s education program, is a relatively new and exciting initiative known as the BRAC Scholarship program or the Medha Bikash program.

Medha means “merit” and Bikash means “development”, thus Medha Bikash roughly translated means “promoting merit or talent”. The Scholarship program resulted from BRAC’s recognition that there are a significant number of intelligent students that come from poor backgrounds. These students are typically high-achievers, attaining grades of at least 80 percent in the Secondary School Certificates (SSC) and a grade point average of at least 5.0. However, financial pressures often hinder their academic performance and restrict their ability to pursue higher education.

The BRAC Scholarship program was created to address these barriers. The program first provides financial support. For example, students receive funding for admission fees, private tuition, books and other education materials. In addition, female students receive a stipend for transportation and incidental expenses. The program’s creators also had the foresight to appreciate the significance of technology and foreign language proficiency in the modern world and have integrated specially designed training modules to help develop student confidence and skills in computer studies and English.

The English language course has been designed to help students learn more advance aspects of the English language that are often not covered in the traditional curriculum. With the general standard of English language teaching being rather poor in most secondary schools, especially due to a reliance on rote learning, the English course is fundamental in helping students’ English language proficiency move to the next level.

The Information Technology training program covers the elementary skills that are essential to carryout common office tasks, including basic competency in Microsoft Word and Excel. For students who do not even have the luxury of electricity in their homes - many study by the light of a simple kerosene lamp - this valuable computer training would not have been available without BRAC’s assistance.

This blog post introduces a 5 part series, in which the stories of three of this year’s BRAC Scholarship program students will be presented by BRAC volunteer Nilopar Uddin. Each student, with BRAC’s support, has succeeded in securing a place at India’s top Rajastan University and is preparing to embark on an exciting and ultimately life-changing journey, led by the power of education.

Nilopar Uddin assisted in fundraising and awareness-building activities at the BRAC USA office as a volunteer and also spent a couple of months in Dhaka, providing legal consultancy services to BRAC International. Nilopar is an English qualified lawyer and spent almost three years as a Capital Markets Associate working at Allen & Overy LLP's London and New York offices before joining BRAC.

Founder of Fonkoze, Fr. Joseph B. Phillippe visits BRAC Bangladesh

Fr. Joseph B. Philippe is best known as the founder of Fonkoze, Haiti’s first microcredit bank for the poor. Since 1994, the bank has helped spread the concept of solidarity and has been lending to the furthest reaches of rural Haiti. BRAC first partnered with Fonkoze, more than three years ago. Over the last few years BRAC has been providing Fonkoze technical assistance to Fonkoze for its economic development program for the ultra poor, Chemen Lavi Miyo (CLM). Fr. Joseph recently visited BRAC in Bangladesh to hold talks of further partnership between BRAC and Peasant Association of Fondwa (AFP) in Haiti.

Fr. Joseph provided some insights into the proposed collaboration between BRAC and AFP. He said, “BRAC’s philosophy, mission and vision match with those of APF: to empower the rural poor. I am very impressed with the quality of work BRAC has already done in microfinance, healthcare and education. With BRAC’s participation, our vision of empowering the poor will be strengthened and we could then expand our experience throughout Haiti."

“BRAC has an ongoing formation program for staff which is very good. They have several impressive training centers to develop their staff. Most BRAC employees work with high dedication, commitment and professionalism and I believe this is because they are well-trained and the social benefit package for the employees is also quite good. I want to emulate this approach so that the people we are training turn out to be as professional and motivated as the BRAC staff.”

He further added, “BRAC, unlike other international [Non-Governmental Organizations] NGOs, was organized by the poor. This gives BRAC invaluable insight and direction about their work. Moreover, most other NGOs don’t care about sustainable development but BRAC does. This is why we want to work with them.”

Fr. Joseph has been a leader in the struggle to promote economic opportunity for Haiti’s poor majority for more than two decades. He was involved in transforming his hometown of rural Haiti into a model for sustainable agrarian development. In this process, he started the Peasant Association of Fondwa (APF) in 1988.

With an ambitious and visionary mind, Fr. Joseph also founded the University of Fondwa (UNIF), Haiti’s first and only rural university. UNIF specializes in training young people from rural Haiti in Agronomy, Veterinary Medicine, and Management, encouraging them to return to their home communities and become leaders in sustainable development efforts.

Internship Opportunities with BRAC USA

Are you interested in international development, and want to learn from BRAC, one of the world’s largest and most effective anti-poverty groups?

Do you work well in a dynamic, start-up environment? Do you have an interest in marketing and fundraising? Are you currently pursuing an advance degree in business, public policy, international development or a related field?

If so, an internship with BRAC USA is a great way to put your learning into action!

BRAC USA is currently seeking motivated interns for the Fall and Spring semesters. Interns will assist with a variety of projects and initiatives related to BRAC’s programmatic areas (including microfinance, livelihoods, health, education, and human rights), and also work on creating public awareness about BRAC in the US, strategy and program support, fundraising, grant administration and grant making strategies.

Click here to learn more about the internship opportunity and instructions to apply.

F. H. Abed Meets His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Vancouver Peace Summit

F.H. Abed, founder and chairperson of BRAC, and Susan Davis, President and CEO of BRAC USA, participated in the September 27-29th, 2009 Vancouver Peace Summit organized by the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education.

The Summit was centered around dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and brought together luminaries like former Irish president and UN High Commissioner for Refugees Mary Robinson, religious scholar Karen Armstrong, First Lady of California Maria Shriver, and Nobel laureates Jody Williams, Mairead Maguire, and Betty Williams.

On the second day, Abed was asked to speak at a private retreat with the Dalai Lama on how to generate more positive action in the world. For the occasion, Abed shared his personal story and that of building BRAC.

When The Dalai Lama was being interviewed on the final day, Maria Shriver posed the question of what he had learned over the course of the Summit.

His Holiness described being extremely impressed by Abed: How the evolution of his work and the organization he started exemplified the process by which “real change must start with individuals, then family, then community.” He also expressed admiration for how the organization is now able to export decades of expertise to other countries in need.

Susan moderated the closing panel of the Summit, which focused on Women and Peace Building. This panel included His Holiness The Dalai Lama, Dr. Abed, former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell, Dr. Swanee Hunt of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Ela Bhatt- the founder of Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), Emmy awarding winning musician and co-chair of the NoVo Foundation Peter Buffett.

The discussion focused on the vital, often unrecognized role women play in advancing peace, with participants sharing unique perspectives and experiences related to the issue, and urging greater investment in girls and women. Peter Buffet, spoke for the group when he described girls as “the undervalued asset of society.” The closing panelists also urged for greater participation of women in political office, for education that integrates emotional and social learning for boys and girls, and greater visibility of stories on how women are building peace.

The Women and PeaceBuilding session opened with a moving musical performance by composer and singer Peter Buffett and cellist extraordinaire Michael Kott. One of the original songs, Set Us Free, was inspired by a visit to BRAC's program for adolescent girls. It was accompanied by a video shot and edited by Peter Buffett and can be seen on youtube as well as this blog.

Click here to see the panel discussion on Women and Peace Building.

Click here to learn more about The Dalai Lama Center.

You can read more about the Vancouver Peace Summit on Jocelyn Ling's blog and in The Vancouver Sun.

Join BRAC in Commemorating World Poverty Day

BRAC invites all friends and supporters to commemorate this year’s World Poverty Day by focusing on children’s plight to forge pathways out of poverty.


If you're in Bangladesh this Friday, October 16, we invite you to join us at the historic grounds of Central Shahid Minar, Dhaka University. BRAC is organizing a series of events in Bangladesh with the theme of “Children and families speak out against poverty,” involving children, family members, educators, artists, photographers, media personnel and many others.

Over 300 Bangladeshi students from all backgrounds will come together to draw their respective visions of an ideal world fit for all children, free from poverty. Through this experience, BRAC seeks to inspire a mutual curiosity and respect for each other among the children. The event will also include musical and dance performances by the children and a closing ceremony attended by eminent members of civil society.

The celebration will also include a mobile photo exhibition, Portraits of Change, which depicts images of people from all across Bangladesh working to overcome poverty. The photographs were taken by students at Pathshala, the South Asian Institute of Photography. The exhibit will also be on display at several other prominent locations around Dhaka, Bangladesh during the following week.

Not able to attend the events in Bangladesh? You can still show us your support: All you need to do is draw your own picture of an ideal world fit for all children, free from poverty. Then scan the drawing and either email it to us at michelle@bracusa.org or fax at 1-212-808-0203. We'll publish a selection of drawings we receive on our blog.



The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty was first observed on October 17, 1987 to honor the victims of extreme poverty, violence and hunger. According to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, poverty is a violation of human rights and affirms the need to come together to ensure that these rights are respected. Since then, people of all backgrounds, beliefs and social origins have gathered every year from October 16-18 to renew their commitment and confirm their solidarity with the poor.

We hope that you'll join us in speaking out against poverty, either by attending the events in Bangladesh or sending in your own drawing of a world free from poverty.

BRAC Chairperson Participates in 2009 Clinton Global Initiative Panel on Finance

Fazle Hasan Abed, Founder and Chairperson of BRAC, was a panel participant in the 2009 CGI plenary session: Moving From Crisis to Opportunity: Financing an Equitable Future. The session was moderated by CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo and Mr. Abed was joined on the panel by Sheila Bair, Chairwoman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; James Dimon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, JP Morgan Chase & Co; and Peter Sands, Chief Executive Officer, Standard Chartered PLC.

(from left to right) Peter Sands, Chief Executive Officer, Standard Chartered PLC; James Dimon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, JP Morgan Chase & Co; Sheila Bair, Chairwoman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; Abed and Maria Bartiromo, Anchor, CNBC

The hour long session, featuring voices from across the financial continuum, focused on ways to move beyond the current economic and financial crisis to tap innovative sources of financing that can provide stable, ethical, and scalable funding for organizations addressing the world's most challenging problems. The panel also discussed ways to align interests of public, private, and philanthropic capital to build solutions for a more equitable world in which the financial system is effectively working for all.

Sheila Bair, Chairwoman, FDIC and Mr. Abed

Mr. Abed complimented his fellow panel members’ extensive for-profit and regulatory finance experience with his own microfinance and development perspectives. Mr. Abed also issued an important challenge to development organizations such as his own, by asking every organization to be more ambitious and pursue even larger scale projects.

A webcast of the plenary session is available here.

Scaling Up Microfinance in Africa: Lessons from BRAC Uganda

Scaling up microfinance in Africa - Learning from What Works: The Story of how BRAC grew to become one of the largest microfinance institutions in Uganda in less than three years

Join Mr. Arif Islam, the Country Head of BRAC Uganda, for an intimate discussion on the scaling up of microfinance in Africa. Mr. Islam played a critical role in establishing BRAC as one of the largest microfinance institutions in Uganda in just three years.

When: October 6, 2009 6:00pm-7:30pm
Where: The Puck Building, Rice Conference Room / Newman Reception Area
295 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012-9604

Click here to register for the event. Space is limited!

Creating Hope and Opportunity in Haiti for Extremely Poor Women and their Families

At the end of August, BRAC’s founder F. H. Abed, the head of BRAC International, Aminul Alam and I visited Haiti to explore ways we could deepen our work there.

Only 680 miles off the Florida coast, Haiti is considered the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with approximately 80% of its 9 million people living under the poverty line and 54% in abject poverty. Saddled with multiple development challenges including political instability, high unemployment and illiteracy rates, food insecurity and vulnerability to devastating natural disasters, Haiti is a beautiful country with a vibrant population. In spite of these challenges, the people we met and programs we visited left us feeling very hopeful for the country’s future.

We were hosted by our partner, Fonkoze, the country’s largest microfinance institution, which runs an economic development program for the ultra poor, Chemen Lavi Miyo (CLM). Over the last few years Fonkoze has piloted the CLM program with technical support from BRAC, and the organization is now preparing to scale the program to include up to 5,000 participants.

In 2002, BRAC initiated its innovative ultra poor program which is designed to meet the needs of extremely vulnerable and food insecure women who are unable to access and benefit from mainstream poverty reduction programs in Bangladesh.

The program improves the livelihoods of participants through free assets, enterprise training, special health services, social development, subsistence allowances, and specialized microfinance loans. Today it covers the poorest districts in Bangladesh and has benefited over 150,000 women.

Given the program’s success and impact, BRAC is now providing technical assistance for similar projects in Ethiopia, Honduras, India, Pakistan, Peru, Yemen and of course Haiti.

In Haiti I set out to meet with new members of the CLM program, to hear their stories and also witness the successes and challenges of the pilot program. Natalie is 18 years old. She has 7 brothers and sisters, but she is an orphan. Her mother died in child birth 7 years earlier and her father died two years ago when she was 16. I asked her where she was living and how she earned money for food. With a desperate look on her face, she explained that she now depended on her boyfriend who she had been living with for the last 2 years. After her father died, she needed to find a way to feed herself. Now she has a baby and tries to do whatever she can to earn income. She’s never been to school a day in her life but would love to learn. Natalie said that she was eager to participate in the CLM program.

We met another very thin woman whose name and face I will keep confidential. She is a mother of 4 but has only 3 at home now. She gave up her oldest daughter as she couldn’t afford to feed her. In Haiti, this means her child is working in someone else’s home, often under slave-like conditions. (There is a book about the estimated 300,000 child slaves in Haiti called Restaveks by Jean-Robert Cadet, a Haitian American and former restavek, who explains this phenomena and promoting a campaign to end the practice.)

This woman has resorted to prostitution to support her family (a Creole term that means ‘staying with’). I noticed a burn on her youngest child’s forehead that looked like it was becoming infected. She explained that she didn’t have the means to see a doctor. It was troubling to think the burn required only a simple treatment, but without it had the potential to become a significant health issue. She was also eager to join the CLM program.

At a focus group meeting for potential new CLM participants, I met 4 more women and their families. Each of these women had between 5 and 10 kids and most were only eating 7 to 9 meals a week. In fact, Melanne, the 12 year old daughter of one of the women, had not eaten all day and it was already late afternoon.

I met with two other children: a daughter who was already pregnant and a son who was working as a day laborer – the only job he could obtain without a proper education. I asked them both what they wanted to be when they grew up, but unlike BRAC school kids in other countries who were quick to talk about becoming teachers and doctors, they both seemed uninspired by the question, as they had little focus on their futures.

As difficult as these encounters were, I know that the CLM program offers a bright side. After living in Bangladesh for over 4 years and now working with BRAC, I have witnessed firsthand the impact of its ultra poor program on the most vulnerable women and households.

Before entering the program, the targeted women have often been abandoned by their husbands and even children. They have been isolated and ignored within their communities and each day is merely a struggle for survival. A sense of self-worth or optimism for a better future has completely disappeared. However, the program’s highly targeted training and support more often than not produces a drastic change.

These same women, who one or two years earlier were too shy to look me in the eyes when introducing themselves, are transformed into confident, self-sufficient and even ambitious persons that have earned the attention and respect of their communities. After 2 years of support – asset transfers, skill training and social linkages – over 90% “graduate” into becoming successful microfinance members. Together, Fonkoze and BRAC are blazing a new pathway out of poverty.

Last week, BRAC, Fonkoze and others made a commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative to break the cycle of poverty in Haiti. Click here to see the announcement and click here to read the full press release.

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn on Oprah Today

Also be sure to see the authors write up about BRAC in

O Magazine.

Husband and Wife Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn will be on the show discussing their book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Knopf). The authors feature BRAC as an organization facilitating progress on this vital goal:

"...BRAC, the largest antipoverty organization in the world, worked with the poorest women...and Grameen and BRAC made the aid world increasingly see women not just as potential beneficiaries of their work, but agents of it."

The shows airs at 4:00pm on WABC, Channel 7, in the NYC Area

Find out when and where the show will air in your area, kindly check out: http://www.oprah.com/locallistings