Yesterday was, by all accounts, not the best or brightest day we’ve had here in Dhaka. As we gathered in the area outside our rooms that morning to depart for the BRAC Centre, a strange silence permeated throughout the group. Everyone was exhausted—the night before was full of socializing with the local kids in the TARC (Training and Resource Center) and flicking little wooden pucks in this immensely popular Bangladeshi game called Grambun. We went to sleep late, and by Wednesday, the cumulative effect of hard days and long nights started to impact our attitudes.
The breakfast was full of spicy local flair: curry-flavored hash brown-like potatoes, which we wrap in chapatti (dense fried triangular dough) with fried eggs and fruit on the side. We definitely needed the sustenance, and the tea and coffee were welcome additions for our tired group.
The week had been full of executive meetings, where our group of Dukies met with the program heads of the various BRAC divisions. We were incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to talk with many of BRAC’s most senior members, many whom are also highly respected scholars and practitioners in their respective fields. Wednesday continued to be full of such discussions. While all interesting, the conferences vary greatly: some inspiring, others considerably less so. Unfortunately, Wednesday was full of the latter.
The morning started off with a meeting with the BRAC Health Programme, which does amazing world in ensuring the physical and medical livelihood of millions of people across Bangladesh. The meeting was full of statistics and facts about BRAC’s record of achievement. By the end, our brains were bursting with information overload, though we did have a thorough understanding of BRAC’s amazing medical services for the poor.
We were then to meet with the head of BRAC’s agriculture division, who is highly regarded around the world for his work on farming, cultivation, and livestock advances. He was going to talk with us in the TARC, where we live, so we all crowded into a van and made the ten minute drive over the our place of stay. However, he was a no show—he had another meeting and was forced to cancel our appointment. So, after milling around while Rachael (our BRAC supervisor) and Shana tried to figure out what was going on, we got back into the vans and went to the BRAC Centre for another conference with BRAC environment staff.
The environment meeting was especially exciting for me, because it was the first meeting on one of my topic areas. Rob and I, who are responsible for the environment programmes as well as BRAC’s signature microfinance division, were looking forward to the meeting, but in retrospect, we should have known better.
The thing is, BRAC doesn’t have an environment programme. They have a few projects, but as we were told in the meeting again and again, BRAC’s commitment is to “alleviating poverty and helping the poor.” If some project also helps the environment in the process of achieving this goal, then BRAC thinks that’s great. But the environment, simply put, is not a priority for this organization.
The meeting turned out to be hilariously unproductive. We were interviewing two members who work on the “environment programmes” (despite the fact there is no programme) in BRAC’s research and evaluation meeting, who started off by telling us that “We are pretty low on the food chain here at BRAC, so we really don’t know what’s going on.” We knew then we were in for a good time.
We also interviewed the head of BRAC’s (for-profit) Solar Panels Project, which has built over two million such devices across the country. His deep knowledge was about the project was very helpful, until he spent twenty minutes telling us in minute detail how the solar panels work. When we asked him about the future of BRAC’s environment programme, he and the others responded, “There is no future.” Everyone tried to stifle a laugh, but the meeting was, to say the least, not very helpful in our information-gathering pursuits.
That afternoon, we met with the BRAC’s education programme. Despite having a packed room of experts, the education officials seemed to not want to answer the questions. When Heather or Anne, who are focusing on education, asked a question, the officials would start to banter. “You should answer the question.” “No, you should, you’re the director.” “No, it’s your responsibility, you have to.” And so it would go, for every query we had. Needless to say, the meeting was not everything we had hoped for.
After our meetings, all of us Duke students met to discuss the website content. We had earlier decided to structure our work into “features:” innovative, multimedia presentations of BRAC’s structure, operations, history, and impact based around cohesive themes. For example, the unique elements of BRAC are showcased in a feature called “The BRAC signature,” the personal effect of BRAC’s work is illustrated in a feature called “Impact in Action.” That process of choosing out features was fairly smooth and congenial. But the next task we had was not as easy.
We tried to make a “coordination guide,” to get everyone in the group on the same page about what exactly the features would contain, how they would be written, and in what media format they would be presented. It was tough work: after a long day, nobody really wanted to think about small details necessary to complete the guide. However, we prevailed, and at the end, everyone was very happy with the work we produced.
After a long day of meetings and an even harder group project after that, we went back to the TARC, ready to relax a bit and prepare for another day at BRAC. We knew it couldn’t get more demanding than Wednesday, though, and we made it through fine, stronger and smarter than we started. And for that, at least, we were thankful.
Then, it was time to sleep it all off.
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