Tune in to ABC Friday, Dec. 16, at 10 pm (EST) for a "20/20" special with Diane Sawyer featuring BRAC –
and Rina, a new mother who lives in a slum in Bangladesh. Bearing a child should be the happiest day of a woman life
– but too often, for reasons that are entirely preventable, it ends in the death of the mother, the child, or both.
BRAC has figured out a low-cost yet ingenious solution for reducing pregnancy risk, reaching 24.5 million people in the process.
That's the population of the state of Texas. In “Making Life: A Risky Proposition,” an hour-long report
on challenges faced by mothers in developing countries, ABC News travels to the slums of Dhaka, seeing our work in action
– including a visit to a BRAC birthing hut to welcome the new arrival of Rina's healthy baby boy. The report is part
of ABC News's Million Moms Challenge. Show your support today by "liking" the Million Moms Challenge on Facebook. If they reach 100,000 likes by noon today, Johnson & Johnson will donate $100,000 to the cause – so please like
and share with your Facebook friends!
We’re making a real difference, and we believe we can multiply our
efforts by spreading the BRAC approach worldwide. So tune into ABC on Friday and help us spread the good news!
bracase version 0
For those who want to sustain future generations, friends in DC, I (+93 congressmen) would recommend an adventure
learning tour to 3 destinations. Fortunately, two of these are within walking distance of each other (Third is a hemisphere
away in Africa, but they know each other well and thanks to death of distance are microeconomics map around your entrepreneurial and open source world as the most productive and collaborative triad ). For the sake of transparency, YES I feel I have some friends in one of these places, but this is a web about the place I haven't yet visited. Ian Smilie's new book starts its guided tour like this . Chris
Macrae DC Bureau of microcredit.tv 301 881 1655, chris.macrae AT yahoo.co.uk suggestions for editing bracase welcome - chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk
This is a friends web -official
webs of BRAC are http://www.brac.net/ http://www.bracuniversity.net/ http://www.bracbank.com/ http://www.bracusa.org/ http://www.youtube.com/user/bracusa1
I have spent 30 years surveying how purposefully organisations sustain their workers missions. BRAC and Grameen
are off the scale compared with any large organisation I have researched - and I have surveyed more that half of the world's
most famous global 100 brands. Muhammad Yunus & Grameen Bank 
| Fazle Hasan Abed Founder and Chairperson, BRAC Fazle Hasan Abed is the Founder and Chairperson of BRAC,
one of the largest non-governmental organizations in the world with over 100,000 staff members and an annual budget of $430
million. BRAC’s micro-finance program has 6.37 million borrowers and has cumulatively disbursed more than $4 billion.
More than a million children are enrolled in BRAC schools and more than 3.67 million have graduated. BRAC’s health program
reaches more than 100 million people. BRAC has, in recent years, taken its range of development interventions to Afghanistan,
Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda and Southern Sudan. Abed has been recognized through a number of awards, including UNICEF’s
Maurice Pate Award, the Olof Palme Prize, Schwab Foundation’s Social Entrepreneurship Award, the Gates Award for Global
Health, UNDP’s Mahbub-ul-Haq Award, and the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership. |
If
anyone has ideas how we can do something similar for BRAC, I'd love to hear of them The Worldwide Importance of BRAC & GRAMEEN | .The entrepreneurial leaders and co-wrkers of BRAC and Grameen have demonstrated that poverty is not the fault of people , women and children but a failed system. It is inhuman for
a child to be born into a place where it has 20% chance of dying before the age of 5 due to villages not having
local nurses. BRAC's first solution in the 1970s was oral rehydration - a service that village nurses needed to provide when
babies had diarrhea. Its inhuman for children to have no access to primary education - BRAC's second main service requiring
a teacher in every rural area. Grameen completed this hi-trust local triangle by providing a banker in every community
empowering women with credit and peer to peer support to start small entrepreneurial businesses | Until the internet's technology, the world's people and their productive lifetimes had been more
separated by the geography of where they lived than interconnected. My father, one of the West's leading microeconomists clarified
in 1984 how one generation (1984-2024) would become worldwide connected for the first time. This is the greatest system change
ever to hit one generation of the human race. System change can always spiral one of two extremely opposite compound consequences
not something in between. It was clear in 1984 that if the 21st Century is to be the best of times for all peoples on this
planet then we must share life-critical knowhow in non-zero sum ways, end poverty by bridging digital divides. The millennial
goals provide a pretty clear map of what ending extreme poverty simultaneously around the world entails | .In July 07 within weeks of becoming UK Prime Minster Gordon Brown give a very
clear storyline "people power" of what our institutions have not yet started to transform towards if millennial
goals are to be met and local communities are to have an equitable opportunity of being integrated into globalisation. He
updated this a little over a year later at Clinton Global Initiative - at a time where fellow keynote speakers -Obama
and Mccain - both deplored the excesses of global top-down systems such as wall Street's failed banks - and pledged they
would commit America to returning to millennial goals. Ironically, there's a lot every nation can learn from ensuring that
communities have banks investing in local people's ability to generate jobs. We are at a stage in human history where the
kinds of jobs of the future are changing just as fast as when the industrial revolution emerged. But this time it is pure
manufacturing jobs that are disappearing. Brown was correct in visioning an age where government should not promise anyone
that their old jobs are safe but should be promising people structures in which everyone has access to developing new jobs.
In the midst of this families and children in any civilized place need the same rights that BRAC and Grameen have pioneered
:n channeling local medical support, local teachers, local bankers, connection to the worldwide, collaboration spaces in which
people peer to peer learn vocational skills. | . In this tv interview, Clinton explains how the micro sustainability investment networks that have emerged in Bangladesh
primarily because of the leadership examples and micro-entrepreneurial facilitation structured designed by Grameen and
BRAC provide a benchmark for developing nations in our internetworked local to global economy. They have transparently distributed
what top-down government and mass media could not equitably empower. For 30 years now, Grameen and BRAC have
modeled themselves round social busienss constitutions. These are the opposite how the traditional charity dollar
is spent and then needs to fundraise all over again. The social busienss dollar endlessly recycles its investment in an organization’s
service purpose. It does this by insisting people entrepreneurially attend to a positive cashflow but reinvest that back inside
the community. The safest way to ensure that owners have no conflict with such continuous reinvestment in development is to
constitute the organization as owned by the poorest in the community. While Grameen's origin has been to focus on areas where
people could serve each other whilst generating income, the origin of BRAC was, in effect, micro-privatization - doing a better
job for the poorest communities with public funds than a bureaucratic or corrupt government. BRAC's Fazel Abed has probably
innovated more reliable service franchises around vital needs than anyone alive today. Whereas Grameen's leadership team around
Muhammad Yunus has serially introduced the most extraordinary entrepreneurial revolutions. Each of microcredit , micromobile
and micro-energy involved planting a long-term investment exponential but one that literally took rural economies to
a higher future level - a pathway not just to ending poverty but leaping sufficiently far ahead that even cyclical natural
disasters would not push the next generation back under the poverty line There is an opportunity for egovernment to make this openness and representation of cultures that unite
round the golden rule of all major religions. Do unto others what you would wish done unto you. | . Today national strategic dialogues co-chaired
by leaders like Abed and Yunus make fascinating reading. In effect, Bangladesh has become the country par excellence in developing sustainable community
franchises that end poverty and its boundary environmental challenges. It is evident that its fast growing neighbours India and China will need
these services just as much as Bangladesh. The world in effect is finding that Bangladesh is the number 1 exporter of solutions that accelerate accomplishment of millennial
goals everywhere as well as developing the sorts of entrepreneurial and job-creating education that all future children need.
Educators have spotted that the schooling system the west built has its design origins in western empire's ancient industrial
needs, when it was assumed that a few per cent would be promoted to a command and control top, and schools would sift out
the vast majority as not talented enough to have their competences invested in. This is the ultimate challenge that the whole
world needs change if we are to honor every child's potential from the day she or he is born. If we fully understand the benchmarks
that BRAC and Grameen offer us by partnering grassroots networks such as theirs in Future Capitalism, then today's adult generation
may yet hand on the best of times to all our future chldrens. Ultimately children are the deepest sustainability investment
and a very micro one. Not the sort of flow that macro institutions like Wall Street banks ever got close to appreciating.
We need new economic maps. Ones that worldwide networkers can collaboratively search out if mass media puts on reality
program in which youth the world over wants to be "The Apprentice" of community entrepreneurs like Abed
and Yunus and the 100000 Bangladeshi's+ they have inspired to be community facilitators of microentrepreneurship. |
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Wednesday, August 19, 2009
BRAC leads anti-poverty
effort in post-conflict countries http://www.brac.net/index.php?nid=438
NEW YORK, July 22, 2009 - BRAC is leading a $15 million
initiative to rebuild war-torn communities in West Africa, four organisations supporting the effort announced today.
The Soros Economic Development Fund, Open Society Initiative for West Africa, Omidyar Network, and Humanity United
are funding this groundbreaking initiative to support families and prevent renewed conflict.
"This investment in the people of West Africa comes at a critical time," said Stewart Paperin, president
of the Soros Economic Development Fund. "With their countries emerging from devastating civil wars, this support gives
people the tools to rebuild."
BRAC, one of the world's largest anti-poverty groups,
is providing microfinance, health, and agricultural support in Sierra Leone and Liberia. It anticipates that over 500,000
people will benefit from these programmes.
"In the face of overwhelming
need, BRAC's work has real potential to create opportunities for hundreds of thousands of families to stabilise their lives
and build for the future," said Matt Bannick, managing partner of Omidyar Network. "Our investment will help catalyse
this economic and social impact."
Since March, BRAC has opened 20
new microfinance branches in Sierra Leone and Liberia and will add 20 more by the end of the year. BRAC made its first loans
in June. Over the next two years, it will provide financial services to tens of thousands of women, as well as agricultural
supplies and training to small crop and livestock farmers. BRAC will also prepare four hundred community based health volunteers
to provide ongoing essential healthcare and help fight deadly diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, and cholera.
"People desperately need to earn a living," said Fazle Hasan Abed, founder and chairperson of BRAC. "Despite
the many challenges these countries face, Liberia and Sierra Leone are uniquely positioned to become models for successful
development in West Africa. We are committed to providing training and resources so that the poor, especially women, can unleash
their capabilities as entrepreneurs and improve their livelihoods."
BRAC's work in Sierra Leone and Liberia is being funded through a combination of grants and equity, and BRAC is negotiating
additional debt capital to finance the loan portfolio. This two-year pilot programme will help BRAC build a long-term sustainable
strategy for integrated development in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
http://brac.tv please help us track how BRAC is changing africa older refs- Liberia 1
BRAC's 2008 Report is at http://www.brac.net/useruploads/files/BRAC%20Annual%20Report%20-%202008.pdf
Other Africa BRAC highlights http://www.brac.net/usa/bracs_work_africa.php Jan09: BRAC, a leading international development
organization founded in Bangladesh announced that it has successfully raised $62.6 million of debt capital to provide microfinance
loans to poor borrowers in Tanzania, Uganda and Southern Sudan. The BRAC Africa Loan Fund provides long-term, local-currency
funding that will enable BRAC to scale up its microfinance operations to reach over 700,000 borrowers through over 200 branches
across the three countries. The Fund represents the largest single financing to date of a southern hemisphere development
organization expanding into Africa. The Fund will aggregate US dollar loans from investors through a special purpose
company and use the capital to make local currency loans to BRAC Uganda, BRAC Tanzania and BRAC Southern Sudan over a period of seven years. A second and final closing is planned during the first half of 2009 to reach the Fund’s
target of $74.0 million. 1 Uganda April 09: BRAC Uganda has emerged as the largest NGO in the country, employing close to 1400 staff, 97% of them being Ugandan. Mr.
Islam also explained how BRAC Uganda currently operates 123 offices in 37 districts across the country, impacting the lives
of half a million people. more refs 1 2 3 4About BRAC Tanzania: In June 2006, BRAC began operating its Microfinance Program in three regions in Tanzania - Dar-es-salam,
Arusha and Coast. In the past year, approximately USD 4 million in loans has been distributed through this program. The microfinance
program includes outreach and services at the village level and is specifically focused on women. BRAC leveraged this organization
capital to develop extension service cadre in health, agriculture and livestock initiatives. Currently, there are over 350
BRAC staff members working in Tanzania.
Click here to read BRAC Tanzania's 2008 Annual Report (pdf) Microfinance Program Established in June 2006 and has undergone major expansion since January
2007 Operates 41 branches in seven districts Organized 1,481 groups Mobilized 39,513 members; 25,518 of whom
have borrowed Disbursed over USD 4 million in loans Employed 40 branch managers and 164 community organizers
Health Program Established in January 2007 Operates 20 branches Mobilized 26,210
community members to participate in health education Trained 200 CHVs
Agriculture Program
Established in January 2007 Operates 15 branches Distributed 48,625 kg in seeds Trained 243 model farmers
and extension workers Serves 1,448 general farmers
Poultry and Livestock Program Established
in January 2007 Operates 20 branches Trained 200 volunteers Employed 350 staff members (95 percent are Tanzanian
and over 95 percent are local women) Signed an agreement with the Government of Tanzania’s relevant ministries
to ensure adequate vaccination supplySierra Leone April 09: BRAC Sierra Leone has now set up 10 microfinance branches and launched its health, agriculture and livestock programs S.Sudan March 2009: BRAC currently operates 17 microfinance branches in the country, reaching 14,000 members and is piloting initiatives in
livelihoods, health and education.
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