The Department of Women Affairs has drafted Tk 2.5-billion schemes to identify, support and rehabilitate women and adolescents who were affected by the July uprising.
The move has been taken to recognise their contributions and preserve historical records of the movement, which led to the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
On January 26 last, the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs held a meeting of the project-scrutiny committee with senior secretary Mamtaz Ahmed in the chair to review the project titled "Identification and Rehabilitation of Women Victims of the July Uprising".
"Our brave daughters participated actively in the July movement, working alongside their male counterparts. In some instances, they played a vital role," she said.
This project aims not only to honour their remarkable contributions but also to support those who are in distress due to the movement, she added.
The minutes of the meeting issued last Wednesday were sent to the Socioeconomic Infrastructure Division of the Planning Commission on the same day.
Along with this, a request has been made to initiate the approval process by including it as a new project in the Revised Annual Development Programme (RADP) for the current fiscal year.
A senior official of the commission said the project has remained at an initial stage. A review meeting would be arranged after receiving the project proposal as the first step to place it before the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) for the final nod.
Analysing the minutes, it found that the meeting gave some recommendations, including the replacement of the term "women" by "women and adolescents", to better reflect those affected by the July uprising.
Women and girls should be identified and assisted based on their specific needs and qualifications and the word "assistance" should replace "rehabilitation" in the project title of the centre to better capture the nature of the support.
The meeting also suggested the aims and goals of the project to be clearly defined as SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Result-oriented and Time-bound). The meeting also asked for redesign the DPP with justified component-wise cost breakdown.
The officials said the main objectives of this project are to identify the July uprising women victims, acknowledge their contributions to the movement, maintain a self-contained database and rehabilitate the affected women according to their needs.
The meeting also discussed the necessity to provide financial support to the training programmes of the Department of Women Affairs to create entrepreneurs and to link them with the ongoing programmes of the Department of Women's Affairs, if necessary, to coordinate with other government, non-government organisations, ministries and departments.
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