Our first full Monday in Dhaka found us once again in the BRAC Headquarters. As usual, we began our day at the 4th floor restaurant, where we were served our usual array of breads, fruits, eggs, and some other mix of lentils and spices that I’ve quickly learned to avoid. Hoping to catch as much time on the internet as possible, we quickly stuffed down the food and scurried up to the 19th floor conference room. Our efforts to surf the net were soon for not, however, when the unreliable internet service turned against us and we were stuck starring at blank screens for 30 minutes before the work day started.
Today, we were all to meet with the directors of three of BRAC’s core programs. After spending about an hour going over good questions and preparing for these interviews, we first met up with Babar Kabir, the specialist for the WASH (Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene) program, a component of the BHP (BRAC Health Program). I may be slightly biased as this will be the program that I am focusing on for the summer, but I found the discussion to be incredibly interesting and inspiring. Hearing Dr. Kabir discuss BRAC’s goal of having 100% sanitation in Bangladesh by 2011 and the ways in which they plan to reach over 38 million people to replace and build new latrines and develop safer water supplies was a great start to the day. The best part of it all, however, was when he told Michaela and me that we had free reign when it came to deciding what topics to discuss on the website. The amount of trust he had in our ability to judge which features of the program are most exciting made me want to work even harder so he would not regret his decision.
After the brief overview of the WASH Program, we all gathered and made our way back down to the 4th floor for lunch. Fearing that we would once again be served the same spicy fish (by at least my standards), my prayers had been answered when I discovered that we would be having chicken instead (this of course only lasted for a short while, as we were to be served fish, bones and all, later for dinner). During lunch, we met another intern, Julie, who has just graduated from high school and is planning on heading to UPenn next fall. We also received a short lesson in German from Rob. I believe Scott got the most out of the lesson, though, when he learned the always useful phrase “These are my dancing pants” (“Sie sind miene Tanzhosen” for those who were wondering).
After the lunchtime fun had ended, we forged onwards through the tight schedule and met with Harashit and Wahida, the two directors of the Adolescence Program. After Wahida gave a great overview of the program’s expansive and comprehensive work, things soon turned into a bilingual storm with both English and Bangla being thrown around after Harashit began answering some of our questions. Because he didn’t know much English, he would answer all of our questions in Bangla and soon even our own translators, Galiba and Khorshed, got in the act and started conversing solely in their native language, leaving the rest of us extremely puzzled. Luckily in the end, Galiba was able to slow things down and fill in the missing details for us so that we could get back on track.
At our last meeting of the day, the group met up with Zerina Kabir, the director of the Social Development Program. Along with some of her employees, she gave a wonderfully informative presentation on their goals of improving active citizenship in the Bangladeshi population and how they work closely with other BRAC programs, such as developing a public theater initiative for the Health Program, to work towards a “holistic assault” on poverty (a popular phrase used around here). It was during this discussion where I once again became completely amazed with the originality of BRAC, which as stated by Dr. Kabir, is the only organization in Bangladesh that links the community, through rural civil societies, to the government in face-to-face interactions.
After today, I have no doubt in my mind that BRAC really does think of everything when it comes to planning what is best for Bangladesh in alleviating the country’s poverty problem. With their ingenious methods of empowering the poor and encouraging them to work beyond their means, this organization truly is remarkable.
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