The Ultra Poor Programme - I

FE Team | Published: November 10, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Ishrat Firdousi
Mehena was born to a poor family at Chilmari Char under Chilmari Union in Chilmari Upazilla of Kurigram district. Her days were spent in near starvation. Even though she wanted to she could not study beyond Class-3; there was no opportunity to do so. At a very early age she was married off to Ajit, a poor peasant of Ramna Bandh of Ramna Union. Ajit was a day labourer and within two years the couple had their first child. They had three more children one after another, two boys and two girls in all. Now the situation was more trying than ever. Mehena and her husband could barely keep the family alive. Desperate, at one point Mehena herself became a day labourer and toiled at the fields of others.
With the combined earnings of husband and wife the family somehow survived. And always, the thought of the future of her children haunted Mehena.
It was at this time one day that BRAC's CFPR TUP Programme knocked on her door. Mehena was selected to be a beneficiary under TUP 2002. According to her preference she was selected goat rearing as an enterprise. After a 3-day training she was given five goats the Market price of which was Tk 4,950. As supplementary grant she was given Tk 4,320 in addition to the healthcare service for the family.
Mehena was overjoyed to receive the goats. She started taking care of them as she would her children.
In a short time, two of her goats gave birth to three kids. And like this, the number of Mehena's goats multiplied. Today, Mehena is the owner of 42 goats. Three of the animals have died and over this period she sold 60 goats and earned Tk 48, 500. From this fund she leased a piece of land for Tk 20,000. She has spent Tk. 17,250 to build a house and furnishing it cost her an additional Tk 5,100. She has also spent Tk 5000 on food. With the crop in her leased land and the goats, Mehena can now run her family very well.
Mehena now has a savings of Tk 1,145. She has now taken Tk 5000 from BRAC under its micro-credit programme. With that money and some of her own she bought her husband a new rickshaw. Her husband can now earn cash money from the rickshaw.
Mehena's boys and girls are in school. Her dream is to educate them and make them worthy citizens. There is now always a smile on her face. She is very grateful to BRAC for the great change in their lives.
Most of the poverty alleviation programmes in Bangladesh are based on micro-finance. The 20 percent of the population considered ultra poor have always remained outside the scope of micro-finance programmes. The opportunities offered to other poor to improve their livelihood are not available for the ultra poor. They are considered incapable of availing themselves of those opportunities. The reason is straight forward: people who cannot earn their daily bread cannot even imagine about an extra opportunity; it is beyond their concept.
The plans taken for the ultra poor were very limited. For instance there is the VGD Programme (vulnerable group development programme) which was initiated under the food-for-work programme. This programme is an opportunity for the poor to earn their food in exchange for work.
Then there is the VGF Programme (vulnerable group feeding programme) whose beneficiaries are those who are unable to move about on their own, that is, they are incapacitated.
But both VGD and VGF programmes proved to be ineffective at the crisis period to help the ultra poor, as target beneficiaries were not in a position and lacked courage to avail themselves of these opportunities. Also, none of these two programmes were considered as development programmes. They were only means to help people sustain themselves for a period.
Finally there are Test Relief programmes which undertaken immediately after a natural calamity or some other crisis. In underdeveloped countries like Bangladesh, Test Relief programmes are under taken by the respective government and NGOs.
BRAC on the other hand has undertaken a more right based approach for the ultra poor populace of the country.
After the war of liberation in 1971, the helplessness of the poor people prompted BRAC to form as an organisation in 1972. BRAC's mission was poverty alleviation and empowerment, specially of the rural poor women. BRAC wanted to prepare this bulk of the population in such a way that they would be able to work for the development of the society and the country.
A Bangladesh free of hunger and poverty, where there would be no discrimination regarding race, religion, age and gender is BRAC's dream and it is towards that end that this organisation has been working for the past thirty-five years.
Today, BRAC is not only the largest non-government organisation (NGO) in the world it is also the largest micro financing institution.
However, from experience, the organisation realised that for an effective development of the country, a holistic approach was required for all kinds of development programmes. Besides, BRAC has seen that particular types of people have not been able to participate in any of the various poverty alleviation programmes. With this realisation, BRAC began implementing from January 2002 a new programme targeting the ultra poor called, "Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction - Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR-TUP) Targeting Social Constraints."
The programme is funded by DFID, EC, CIDA, NOVIB and by BRAC's own fund.
The special feature of BRAC's Ultra Poor Programme is that non returnable grants and assets are provided to the beneficiary. This means that the assets and grants given to the beneficiaries are not taken back.
To quote from a BRAC report: "This programme helps the ultra poor to be engaged in income generating activities and gives them an opportunity to make a daily living and be recognised in society as normal poor. This particular programme is specially targeted at the ultra poor to reduce the level of their poverty and bring it to the level of the normal poor. This programme with the support of the donors is being implemented after an intensive research period. This grant based programme aims at delivering the ultra poor from their present inhuman and pitiful state of life.
"The main focus of this ultra poor programme is to make the target beneficiaries skilled, productive and self-reliant. Keeping this in mind what BRAC does is while they provide the resources, they also provide the need based training, technical assistance, and continuous monitoring of the activities. Along with this, other facilities are expedited under this programme. For instance, health care services are building awareness on other social issues. Every ultra poor beneficiary is trained initially for the first twenty-four months and afterwards, a total of two-year activity is conducted in such a way that they become skilled enough for income generating activities and earn their livelihood on their own."
(To be continued)