Publications

At ActionAid Bangladesh ‘stitching the change’ for rights of people marginalised due to power imbalance and identity politics is the motivation and drive that kept this organisation running for 3 decades. In this report, we attempt to capture the year past with the ‘prouds’ and ‘sorries’, and provide an overview of the work of ActionAid Bangladesh in 2013.

‘Learning Document Series 14-15’ is fifth in the annual series that ActionAid Bangladesh has been producing since 2009. The underlying purpose of LDS is to portray rights-based alternatives and development practices facilitated by ActionAid and its partners for wider upscale and replication

Education is critical to human development, enlightenment and emancipation. It is a powerful vehicle for securing social justice. Education is a fundamental human right, the responsibility of the state and a core element of national development policy. Securing the right to education is key to enabling people to secure other basic rights. This article is a critical analysis on how the draft education law 2013 to look into how much inclined it was to protect the right of education of citizens.

This report is developed on information from a phone-survey on 278 deceased garments workers who left behind children.

ActionAid Bangladesh, with the support of partner organizations, launched the LEADR Project (Liberation and Empowerment: Attaining Dignity and Rights for Sex Workers and their Children in Bangladesh) in December 2011. This project has been funded by AECID (Agencia Española de Cooperación y Desarrollo) and its core goal is to promote the rights of this segment of society in order to improve their wellbeing and prevent human trafficking.

In 2012, we spent a significant time for creating understanding on our new Country Strategy Paper (CSP-IV) and developing programmes in line with the document. Substantial amount of time was also invested in change management process and capacity building of the staff and partners on new CSP and HRBA programming approach. We worked with excluded people and individuals living in poverty and their organisations, movements to build active agencies so that they can lead their own social change process. Our core constituencies were spread across age, sex, location and diverse categories of exclusion. Also, to support people’s action as part of solidarity, we worked with state and non-state actors and institutions.

Many of us at the country office and friends in the rural areas contributed in this second issue of the e-magazine. We are more than happy to be able to get to you people’s stories from the grassroots – people who are constantly bringing change in their lives.

The purpose of this study is to share the results of the Action Research for Community Adaptation in Bangladesh (ARCAB) evaluation of effectiveness of ActionAid Bangladesh’s (AAB) two community based adaptation (CBA) projects. The aim of this evaluation itself is to assess the impact of these interventions in facilitating progress towards the long-term goal of transformed resilience of the climate vulnerable poor. It is also to provide recommendations on how AAB can further support the communities they have engaged with in moving towards this aim.

‘Learning Document Series 11-13’ contains three development alternatives. The first alternative talks about formation of ‘participatory video’ team, what it takes to be ‘participatory’ and how to proceed in terms of research, issue, script etc. As a tool, participatory video has had significant success in campaigning on rights and change of mindsets. The second alternative features how grassroots leadership helps promoting right to education. Case in point is remote char (island) areas and the means suggested is Government registration of formal schools set up by communities. Journey towards this has never been easy with policy hurdle, logistic limitation, faculty shortage etc. posing constraints. This article suggests ways to overcome these difficulties. Finally the learning about Lokokendra (people’s organisation in the communities) shows what drives Lokokendras ahead, how they come into being etc. We also come to know about how to create enabling space for people to determine action points to take against inequalities and injustice