Water and Sanitation:
VERC has been implementing a Water and Sanitation program since its inception as a component of technology promotion for livelihood status improvement. WatSan activities at the initial stage were mostly carried out in terms of production and distribution of latrine ring-slabs, installation of tube wells for safe water use promotion with limited hygiene education for awareness raising. The widely known Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) was evolved in early 2000. WaterAid Bangladesh (WAB) has been providing technical and financial support to VERC since 1986. Following the innovation of CLTS approach, WAB designed the umbrella approach known as ASEH (Advancing Sustainable Environmental Health) for scaling up of the key principles of CLTS. At present WAB is supporting the Enhancing Environmental Health by Community Organization (EEHCO) project. The process also influenced in setting national strategies and programs to achieve MDG sectoral goal.
Water and Sanitation projects under implementation in VERC working areas during the year were supported by WaterAid Bangladesh, WaterPartners International and by VERC itself. Significant achievements are – 87592 hygiene promotional activities done, Household level 15276 hygienic latrines installed, Total 43867 beneficiary got CBO capacity building training, Install 259 community based new water points.
VERC continued providing training and capacity building support to other NGOs in the sector. The largest amount of training was offered (302 NGO staff) to HYSAWA PNGOs of GoB-Danida project across several locations of the country.
Institution Building and Income Generation (IBIG):
VERC Micro Finance Program has experienced a long journey in addressing a comprehensive development need of the disadvantaged and underprivileged poor people living in both rural and urban areas of the country. It is an important program of VERC in reducing the poverty level by ensuring a sustainable socio-economic status of livelihood security for the people in need of external support. To this effect, efficient management system and tools, linkage with financial institutions, identification of alternative micro-finance schemes, approach to address poorest of the poor section and access to the remotest and hard to reach locations has added an extra dimension to VERC Income Generation Program under its Institution Building and Income Generation (IBIG) program. During the reporting period, 8 new branches have been opened increasing the total at 35; new unions brought under coverage is 24 and the total is now 134; have been, 824 new group/samities formed and the total is now 3,582; 10,181 new borrowers are involved and the total is now 43,014 while the total number of members stands at 53,118.
Provided support to interventions related to health, sanitation, education and agricultural production in the communities through different program sectors of the organization itself.
Health:
Health is one of the important social development indicators where reduction of infant, child and maternal mortality rate acquires top priority in respect of poverty reduction. The establishment of VERC financed Mother and Child Hospital in Savar, Dhaka is a credible success in health program. The Hospital is situated at the central point of its Savar program area. The main points of interest are – i) clinical services like antenatal & postnatal services, normal birth delivery, some surgical & pathological arrangement and treatment for common ailments and ii) business and friendly approach, receives client contribution as service charge but free services for the poorest clients. Community Led Sustainable Health project provided health related services to community people in three unions of Lalmohan Upazila under Bhola district. Up to date 43,730 clients received health care services from the project. SIMAVI has been supporting the project.
Education:
In order to foster and strengthen human potentials, VERC since its emancipation has been emphasizing on education program. Eventually, education has been identified as a priority sector in Bangladesh by both the government and non-government organizations, not only to eradicate illiteracy, but also for human resource development. Accordingly, VERC has been implementing education program in innovative ways with support from development partners in the sector. The ongoing projects are: SUCCEED; VERC own funded program; Sustainable Development Program for Rural Poor Children; Sustainable Capacity Building through Reflect Project.
SUCCEED project consists of 318 ongoing pre-schools through community support and total 5073 students have been enrolled in the schools for this reporting year. Teachers are being professionally developed time to time for delivering quality education. Community ownership is ensured through various support and parents involvement. Special attention is given for enrollment of disabled children and voluntary support of the teachers.
VERC’s own funded project has been ongoing since its emergence in late seventies with significant contribution and satisfactory performance for quality education. Sustainable development program has reached a good mark by ensuring early childhood development through 151 school visits and ensuring 96% attendance of the children. Sustainable Development Program for Rural Poor Children project enrolled 610 students in Early Childhood Development Program and 910 children completed their one year ECD course. Non-govt. primary school program organized various workshops, SMC meetings, sharing meetings that helped in mainstreaming children in the institution based education system, building community ownership and sustain the activities.
Environment:
Due to climate change environmental issues are becoming crucial global concerns. Accordingly, VERC has been responding to the concerns since its inception and trying to contribute in this sector by implementing different activities under Disaster Response Program and Improved Cooke Stoves Program. During the reporting year the organization has successfully contributed to emergency response, rehabilitation and reconstruction works in the coastal districts Bhola and Jhalakathi for the affected/vulnerable groups of cyclone SIDR under Disaster Response Project. However, another project - Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme (CDMP) is completed their project activities during November 2008. This project was mainly a community based capacity building project and was given emphasis in preparing participatory Local Disaster Risk Reduction Action Plans by organizing training, workshops, and building capacity of Disaster Management Committees.
Training:
Training is an indispensable tool for building capacity of the development actors to institutionalize the lessons learnt from the development process. To enhance the knowledge and skills for blooming up human potential, change the attitude and develop commitment of development actors and facilitators to enable them to contribute in the development sectors efficiently and effectively, this section has conducted training of almost 64,219 participants in this reporting year as required by the projects in different sections of the organization. Different client organizations also used training facilities from VERC for 2,054 participants.
Strengthening Local Government Project (SLG) is one of the important and potential projects of Training Section. The program activities have continued in 92 unions in 11 upazilas of 11 districts across Bangladesh. This project directly aims to strengthen the Local Government, particularly the Union Parishad and PNGOs so that they would be able to contribute to the sustainable development and could address marginalized and vulnerable groups in the society (community) in their respective areas.
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Capacity Building for Local NGOs in Bangladesh” is started during the reporting period. This is a training based project which will continued till 2011 under the support of Terre des Hommes Netherlands (TdH-NL). Through this project 09 partner NGOs of TdH-NL in Bangladesh are capacitated with knowledge, skill and capacity on health, education, Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and organizational development within the time line.
Communication and Publication:
VERC has been playing a pivotal role in documenting different activities and innovations of the projects of different Sections and the same being shared with different stakeholders and partners through its regular communication and dissemination system, particularly through published reports, day observation, exhibitions, displays, etc. Four volume of quarterly publication of Swabolombi, four volume of quarterly publication of Jalani Samachar and two volumes of half yearly publication Reflect Barta have been published by VERC during the reporting period.
Research, Evaluation and Documentation (RED):
Since emergence VERC undertook different types of research and innovative activities. Later on RED Section has emerged within VERC for conducting action research and piloting different new initiatives which are documented and disseminated among the partners, stakeholders and donors. During this reporting period an important scientific research was carried out across several VERC ASEH project locations on safe distance between water-points and latrines with WaterAid support. The findings were shared with sector stakeholders engaged in the implementation of water point installation works under WatSan projects. This would be guiding tool with latest observations.
Three other small scale internal studies were carried out in VERC project areas with the objective of streamlining the program and assessing the level of sustainability. One of the study was done in SUCCEED project areas in Gazipur and Dhaka district while two other studies were done in IBIG intervention areas in Mohanpur, Rajshahi, Savar and Sitakunda Upazila of the country.
