BRAC Programmes
14 BRAC Annual Report 2011
Advocacy BRAC’s advocacy programme seeks to influence policymakers, resource holders, access providers and individuals to implement policies that bring about positive changes in the lives of the poor and marginalised. We use the power of the media to give voice to those who would otherwise go unheard, such as the ultra poor and migrant workers. BRAC’s advocacy programme, Advocacy for Social Change, now reaches 13.3 million people in 13 districts in Bangladesh, helping to improve the overall state of human rights in the country.
Advocating social change More than one tenth of the population in Bangladesh that lives in extreme poverty is landless and without any source of regular income. The BRAC programme Advocacy for Social Change advocates for the ultra poor to raise awareness, mobilise resources, increase the ultra poor’s access to health and education services, empower them through associations, uphold issues related to the national agenda, and ensure budgetary allocations to eradicate extreme poverty nationally. This advocacy programme is also pushing to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, ensuring universal education and achieving gender equality. Tuberculosis, a global emergency, has psychosocial barriers pertaining to 450
annual deaths per million in Bangladesh, while malaria claims the lives of thousands of children and pregnant mothers. To reduce infection and death rates, our advocacy efforts focus on raising social awareness, changing health related practices, ensuring access to services, and maintaining transparency in the service supply chain. Together, these address the MDG related to child and maternal health, combating major diseases, and ensuring environmental sustainability.
The safe migration project works with potential and returning workers, especially women and youths, providing information on safe migration processes, relevant laws and rights, legal support, social arbitration to recover money from middlemen, and skills training. We have formed 380 migration forums which have helped to recover over three million taka (USD 45,300) from middlemen through social arbitration.
Presently, foreign remittances contribute to 13 per cent of Bangladesh’s GDP. Our safe migration facilitation centres raise social awareness, orient migrants to help them make informed decisions, and develop their skills with vocational training. In efforts to improve the infant and child mortality rate, estimated at 49 deaths before the age of one, and 64 deaths before the age of five for every 1,000 live births, our Communication for Development project has prioritised seven key behavioral issues: proper hand washing, exclusive breastfeeding, care seeking for children with acute respiratory infections, end of corporal punishment at home and school, birth registration, injury and HIV prevention.