The Chandpur Total Community Development Centres (TCDC) project received funding approval from NZAID through their KOHA-PICD scheme for NGO funding in July 2008. We recently submitted a report to them on the first nine months of the project. Highlights of that report are here:

Country: Bangladesh
Implementation Partner: Baptist Aid-BBCF
Location: Village locations may be seen here

Project Goal

Sustainable development of rural Bangladesh villages, indicated by a mix of social, economic and environmental improvement.

Changes in the project context during the year

Social

Bangladesh transitioned again from a military backed caretaker government to a democratic government through elections held at the end of December 2008. This has had a number of implications for the project:

• A reduction in fertilizer prices and the government’s attempt to ensure better electricity distribution for rural irrigation has resulted in a good rice harvest - positive for project villages
• The new government implemented a very large food security program and introduced food subsidies to prevent increased malnutrition and a further slide into starvation for the very poor. Lower grade rice now costs Tk18~20/kg compared with Tk 35/kg before.

Economic

The global financial crisis has increased financial hardship and poverty for the poor. Prior to the financial crisis, it was estimated 60 million people in Bangladesh were below the $1 per day poverty line. That figure is expected to now increase.

Project implications included:

• Many expatriate Bangladeshi workers (eg: Middle-East, Singapore etc) have lost their jobs and returned home to Bangladesh, causing not only a loss in remittances, but also an added local financial burden.
• NZ currency devaluation resulted in an approximately 26% loss in funding from BANZAid for this project. Some Year 1 activities had to be reduced or omitted.

Progress made during the year in relation to project objectives

For a full list of project objectives please click here

Objective 1: Pre-School & Child Tutorial

Initial activities included: staff appointment and training; preparation of syllabus; purchase of books and stationery; village level awareness, motivation and child enrolment. The tutorial groups started properly in February 2009.
Achievement of targets:
TCDC centres were established in 12 villages (1 per village).
Target: 2 groups of 20 students at each level per TCDC village centre; 240 pre-school children and 240 child tutorial children (Total 480), with equal gender distribution.
Actual: 2 groups per TCDC

Pre-School = 226 (94%), Child Tutorial = 250 (104%). Total 476 (99%). Pre-School = 19 average per group, Child Tutorial = 21 average per group.
Pre-School = 132 boys (58%), 94 girls (42%), Child Tutorial = 115 boys (46%), 135 girls (54%). Total = 247 boys (103%), 229 girls (95%).

Baptist Aid report the children's parents are comfortable with and appreciate sending their children to this child educational activity. They believe the pre-school and child tutorials will assist their children to receive a higher quality education.

Objective 2: Adult Literacy

The materials being used for the adult literacy classes comes from Friends International Village Development Bangladesh (FIVDB). These functional adult education materials teach within a framework of development issues and assists ‘group formation’.

Actual progress to date:
Initial activities included: staff appointment and training; purchase of the FIVDB curriculum work books and stationery; village level awareness, motivation, and enrolment. Classes started properly in February 2009.
Achievement of targets:
TCDC centres were established in 12 villages (1 per village).
Target: 2 groups of 20 adults per TCDC village centre (Total 480), with 50 – 70% female.
Actual: 2 groups per TCDC, average 15 per group. Group members: 15 male (4%), 351 female (96%). Total 366 (76%).

Objective 3: Savings & Loans

This is based on the Adult Literacy class groups. The aim is to get the people in the literacy classes involved in savings and loan activities. The first year target is to get this set up, and start group members on making personal savings deposits in the scheme. The second year will commence training in small scale income generating projects that can be based on using loan funds from the scheme. This is a micro-credit scheme, but with a focus on income generating projects. Loans will not be given for other activities such as housing repairs, school fees, or weddings. 2007 Baseline Survey indicated other organisations offering credit based loans (eg: Grameen), but people experience difficulties in repaying loans with interest due to lack of income generation.

Target: 2 groups of 20 adults per TCDC village centre (Total 480), with 50 – 70% female.
Actual: 2 groups per TCDC, average 15 per group. Group members: 15 male (4%), 354 female (96%). Total 369 (77%).
The groups are established, and capital is increasing with savings of Tk 5~10 ($NZ 0.11~0.23) per person per week. Baptist Aid report that approx 90% of group members are saving regularly. At this point no loans have been given, as Objective 4: Livelihood Training – which will give training in income generation activities will start in Year 2.

[Objectives 4 - 7 are all activities that only start in the second year of the project. Details are available here]

Objective 8: TCDC Set-up & Operation

Following notification of approval of KOHA-PICD funds, Baptist Aid had first to apply for permission from the Bangladesh Government NGO Affairs Bureau to implement the project. Project activities could not start until this permission was received, which took two months.

Set up tasks included:

• purchase of materials and equipment. Office tables, chairs, computers, telephones, bicycles, etc.
• finding suitable office and staff accommodation - for the project office in Chandpur town, and in each village centre.
• recruiting, orienting and training staff. A total of 40 staff were employed, being the management and support staff and the 12 husband and wife teams for the villages. See staff photos

Achievement of targets:
The project is now operating in all 12 villages. However the issue of finding suitable TCDC centres and CDO housing in the villages is still being worked through by Baptist Aid. In addition some set-up equipment and materials has been priced but not yet delivered. This will occur within the Year 1 project year and budget.

Objective 9: Capacity Building for Implementation Partner

Actual progress to date:
One major and 2 smaller capacity building trainings have occurred.

1. Lloyd Ashworth presented project management training as intended, focusing primarily on BANZAid development project management processes and the various BANZAid forms (October 2008). See Report
2. In January 2009 project staff received training in Adult literacy teaching
3. Development / self-help group 'formation' training was presented to project staff in March 2009.

While major capacity building tasks were completed as specified, due to budget constraints some activities were reduced or modified. Year 2 includes a range of capacity building as presented in the original project application (May 08).

Problems and challenges encountered

There were a number of problems and challenges. Only two are mentioned here. More detail is in the full report which can be obtained from the Downloads Section.

Availability of village facilities (land and buildings)

Project set-up and operation required that suitable TCDC village centres and CDO houses be located and rented in the villages. This was required for 2 reasons: (1) The CDO 'couples' will live in a similar way to the project participant / beneficiaries they are working will. This incarnational approach is a genuine attempt to identify in some way with local poor people. (2) BANZAid does not have available capital set-up funds for land and buildings and NZAID's KOHA-PICD scheme does not generally fund capital items such as land and buildings.

However it was found that many of the villages are so poor that suitable facilities were not available. The solution for land and buildings is that the Bangladesh Baptist Trust will purchase land and construct suitable facilities. Each facility will include both the TCDC village centre and the CDO house. Baptist Aid will rent these from the Baptist Trust in compliance with the agreed BANZAid Purchasing and Rental Policy and Procedures.

Target village migration - river erosion

Some village centres close to on-going river erosion may face issues of people migrating to new locations further away from the river. Baptist Aid is monitoring the situation. In one location some land for the TCDC village centre has been purchased (separate to this project funding) in a more secure location. This was not an unexpected issue, as project identification and design recognised and reported on this issue of land erosion.

Financial Report

This report is based on progress at the nine month point. Financial reports will be made available later when these have been completed for the full 12 months.

BANZAid is grateful to the staff of Baptist Aid in Bangladesh for the hard work and commitment that they have put into this project.