Tag Archive: Community-Based Rehabilitation

1. “It is just about enough to keep my head above water”

   September 6, 2009 5:31 am 2 Comments

   Wajed Ali Mallick lived a contented life in quaint little Gowachitta in Southern Bangladesh. During the day he used to ferry electrical goods from shop-to-shop and in the evening he used to go back home to his wife and four children. All of that changed on one fateful evening in January 2007 when an errant iron-rod from a rickshaw pierced his right eye in a freak accident, while he was chatting with friends outside a tea-stall. Doctors in Barisal and Dhaka failed to treat his eye. His other eye could not bear the stresses of the heavy dosage of the medicines recommended. He now has 2/6 vision in his left eye. An iron filing still remains lodged in his right eye, and gives him painful, sleepless nights every now and then.

   

   For two and a half years, Wajed Ali lived on the goodness of his friends and relatives. His disability and exorbitant seed and fertilizer prices meant that his 4 cottahs (1 cottah = 2880 sq. ft.) of land could not be cultivated. Those months of veritable mendicancy still rankle in his mind. He had to marry off his daughter, all of sixteen years, to make sure that the others in the family had enough to eat. The eldest son, who was fourteen years old then and studying in Class VIII in a local school, had to abandon studies to join a tailoring shop as an apprentice. Wajed Ali fathered another child after the mishap. “It was an accident”, said Wajed Ali, half-dejected and half-embarrassed, in response to my question about why he and his wife decided to have a fifth child in the midst of absolute penury.

   Four months ago, Wajed Ali took a loan of Tk 5000 from BERDO and opened a tea stall of his own in the market square at Gowachitta. Every day, he opens shop at 6 am and stays put there till 11 pm. Mondays (the day of the weekly market, when traders come from nearby villages) are particularly good for business. Wajed Ali now earns about a tenth of what he used to earn from his business of electrical goods. “It is just about enough to keep my head above water”, he said when asked if the money was enough to sustain a family of six.

   

   Wajed Ali does not get a disability stipend, something that all persons with disabilities are entitled to get in Bangladesh by government decree. He has not been able to save enough for the bribe that the clerk at the district office asks for in exchange of including his name in the list of disabled people. Surprisingly, he does not have a health insurance either. “Most insurance accounts in Bangladesh are fiddled with by middlemen”, said Wajed Ali. I had little clue about how insurance companies in Bangladesh operate but nodded in agreement. I realised that when a man’s life is a continuous struggle to gather enough means to live, the very thought of investing in one’s future appears faintly ridiculous, even revolting.

2. Micro-credit – a few myths dispelled

   September 1, 2009 6:40 am Leave a Comment

   The success of micro-credit programmes all over the world has given rise to a new train of thought – one that on the basis of experiences I have had here in Bangladesh; seem overly optimistic about the nature and extent of positive changes they can bring about. My last blog highlighted the features of BERDO’s micro-credit programme. This entry points out a few general caveats of micro-credit and is meant to be a quick reality-check. 

   First, the high interest rates charged by micro-credit programmes drive down demand for loans. Poor households are extremely sensitive to these rates of interest and are automatically excluded from such programmes.

   Second, extension of insurance and mobilisation of savings are crucial for upward mobility and act as social safety nets at times of crisis. The holy trinity of savings, credit and insurance performs considerably better together than credit alone can ever hope to.

   Third, access to credit does not automatically translate into successful micro-enterprises. Business and technological inputs, training and education and establishing links with the market are critical for the success of any business initiative.

   Fourth, micro-credit programmes assume that self-employment alone can pull people out of poverty. Such an assumption sometimes threatens to create a new breed of reluctant entrepreneurs.

   Fifth, micro-credit fits with the idea of ‘targeting’ – a means to identify specific kinds of households and persons as opposed to a Universalist approach. 

   

   These drawbacks, however, are no reason for despair. They provoke us to view micro-credit objectively and with guarded optimism. They also tell us that micro-credit, though empowering to an extent, cannot be a substitute for state investment in health, education and infrastructure (which is where advocacy comes in), and should complement state engagement in issues of unfree labour and class exploitation.

   The use of micro-credit to draw on local knowledge and resources and to create and improve access of disenfranchised sections of the population to vibrant, new markets is a novel idea. Without a strong legal and institutional framework and more liberal screening criteria, it threatens to remain just that.

3. A Roving Motivator

   August 8, 2009 7:52 am Leave a Comment

   Mir Salim was eighteen months when he fell ill with typhoid and lost his eyesight. He passed his class 12^th examination in 1992 and undertook training in nutrition at the Helen Keller International at Dhanmondi, Dhaka. For three years, he taught English grammar to high school students in private classes in Banaripara. He has always been good at it, he admits with a touch of pride. He also communicates regularly with Braille magazines in USA. Salim now works as a community organiser with BERDO in Banaripara.

   His work is challenging and problems are plenty. The devastation caused by Cyclone Sidr means that people mistake micro-credit for flood relief. Induction of new members is a slow process that requires a great deal of confidence-building and motivation. He says that motivation, in fact, is a double-edged sword. The indolent are difficult to motivate and the industrious fail to see the merits of enrolling in BERDO’s Community-Based Rehabilitation programme. Once enrolled, people look for quick benefits – a grant, a sewing machine, scholarships for students etc. Awareness levels about disabilities are low and superstitions are rampant in Banaripara, like in most other parts of Bangladesh. Disability among children is often seen as a result of gunaah (sins) committed by other members of the family.  His greatest challenge, he says, is to explain to prospective and current members of BERDO that disability is not a curse.

   The nature of these problems means that Salim has to wear multiple hats – that of a community worker, an education adviser, a negotiator and a disability rights advocate, at different times of the day. He plays scout and travels to neighbouring villages to identify disabled children who do not attend school and negotiates with teachers who are often reluctant to allow disabled children to enrol into local schools. He shares his knowledge in matters of nutrition and hygiene and also accompanies disabled individuals to the District office to help them register their complaints.

   Watch the video below to know why the teacher at the local school thought Nantu (a physically challenged child) could not, and what it took Salim to convince him that Nantu could:

   httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUMwXLlZcSY

   P.S.: Salim has an interest in people, places and the animal kingdom. When not sorting out problems of the villagefolk, Salim reads old Braille editions of National Geographic.

4. Bonding over Banking in Banaripara

   August 6, 2009 2:54 am Leave a Comment

   Once every week at 9 am in the morning in Banaripara in Barisal division of Southern Bangladesh, twenty women and a few children make a beeline for Khairunissa’s house. BERDO’s community worker Fatema waits there with textbooks and public awareness leaflets. For one hour, they talk on different issues – health, education, prenatal care, pregnancy-related complications, hygiene, latest legislations for disabled individuals and their budding business initiatives, started with micro-credit received from BERDO. In between, they also pay their weekly instalments. Fatema takes the lead in most of the discussions, relays information contained in the leaflets and shows them slides. At other times she acts as a facilitator. The women chip in – raise their problems and ask questions. They are all part of a Self Help Group, one that they have christened ‘Shiuli’. At 10 am, the women troop out of Khairunissa’s house and head back home to attend to their daily chores, while Fatema heads to Jahanara’s house for the next meeting – this time with a group that calls itself ‘Beli’.

   

   There are thirty such SHGs in Banaripara consisting of BERDO members. A group usually consists of eighteen to twenty-five members – both able-d and differently able-d. Disabled minors, who cannot be full-time members, are often accompanied by their mothers. Each group has a President, a Secretary and a Treasurer, each of whom is chosen by consensus from among the members of the group for a period of one year. The one-hour meeting comes as a welcome relief to women who find little time away from the grind of household duties. It serves as a platform where they learn life skills. It not only allows them access to a little credit to start an income-generating initiative of their own but also gauges their progress and helps them out with business knowhow from time to time.

   

   The response of the womenfolk at the meeting I attended was very encouraging indeed. ‘Shiuli’ is only nine months old but all members send their children to school. Newly-weds have begun to understand the merits of contraception and pregnant women that of skilled midwifery. Four women from ‘Shiuli’ have taken loans from BERDO and repayment rates of the group are a 100%. One of them, the widowed mother of a paraplegic child, has started a betel-nut shop. She does not earn enough just yet to support her family but is hopeful that her shop will eventually help her tide over financial difficulties. The SHG model has been used the world over and while BERDO’s Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR) programme is not a panacea to all the troubles that plague women and the disabled in rural Bangladesh, it has allowed them to get a foot in the door, afforded them a straw and if its success is anything to go by, it is definitely not the last one.