Impacts in Academia

1. Give Bangladesh on Child Education
   
   a) Academic Supervision & SEL Sessions for Sex-Worker’s Children
   
   Project Pothchola is a curated project of Give Bangladesh Foundation geared towards the social inclusion of sex workers’ children. Project Pothchola is responsible for arranging regular Socio-Emotional Learning (SEL) sessions for 180 children residing in 3 shelter homes. The children are admitted to various institutions around the residences. The underdeveloped & incomplete early-level education framework of Bangladesh leaves the children incapacitated to be knowledgeably equipped enough to penetrate the employment market. For this reason, Project Pothchola is both supplementing & complementing the curricular study of the children. We appoint individual mentors for every child- who monitor their study growth and take action in the face of any kind of hindrance they face. The mentor takes care of the study routine & private tuition needs of the mentee.
   
   Apart from this mentorship program, the project develops SEL modules & disseminates knowledge to them that they are not taught in institutions. We also organize extra-curricular events- in the form of quizzing, fusing generations, cultural representations of diverse communities, etc. Recently, Give Bangladesh Foundation began working with 650 children of Daulatdia, the biggest brothel in Bangladesh. We built a 2500-book library for those children & started our flagship SEL session in the brothel. Another important milestone on this front is that Project Potchola started transferring children of commercial sex workers into safe homes. This is the stepping stone of a process through which we will be able to facilitate children in accessing multipurpose economic opportunities once they enter adulthood.
   
   b) Enabling Disaster Victims in Rejuvenating Study
   
   Terrific natural disasters like cyclones and floods leave scars on every angle of ultra-poor families’ lives and child education is no exception. 12 cyclones have attacked Bangladesh’s coastal area in the last 10 years and severe flooding happens every single monsoon. Give Bangladesh has a dedicated emergency response platform that is aimed at disaster response & recovery. Through this, we provide students with the necessary armories to rise from the deadlock & commence their study.
   
   The most recent example is the once-in-history west zone flood (Known as Sylhet Flood 2023), where we distributed stationery items to 807 secondary-level students of 2 schools. This group included financially insolvent students, and one-fourth of them were awaiting secondary certification examinations. We provided them with notebooks & other required educational equipment.
   
   
2. Baseline Survey on Menstrual Hygiene
   
   Several baseline surveys & Focused Group Discussions (FGD) on Menstrual Health Management (MHM) have been conducted in different districts of Bangladesh under Project Konna, a project of Give Bangladesh Foundation.
   
   The surveys were conducted in Dhaka (Hazaribagh, Mugdha), Kushtia, Sylhet (Shamshernagar), Sunamganj, Gaibandha, Rangamati, Khagrachari, Satkhira (Shyamnagar). These locations were selected based on the needs of the community. In Dhaka, slum dweller women & commercial sex workers were the surveyed group. In Sylhet, they were the tea workers. In Sunamganj, the flood-affected women were surveyed on how they maintained Menstrual Health Management (MHM) during the flood disaster. Similarly, In the rest of our areas, our users were rural women, ethnic communities and some selective communities. Similar to this, the beneficiaries in the remaining areas of the surveys were primarily rural women, ethnic groups, and some particular communities based on their socioeconomic status and social stigma. FGD, Key Informant Interviews (KII), one-on-one interviews, and baseline questionnaires were used to collect data from 800-1000 participants. 
   
   The questionnaires were primarily designed to gather information about menstruation, including when and from whom they first learned about periods, their first-period experience, the menstrual hygiene products they use, where they get them, the cost of the products, and how frequently they changed their sanitary napkins while they were menstruating, and their knowledge about contraceptive pills and painkillers, as well as other information regarding their menstrual health. More in-depth discussions about the respondent’s views on menstruation hygiene occurred during the survey. This well-crafted survey questionnaire provided a framework for data collection and assisted in identifying several pressing problems that need to be explored in more depth.
   
   With the information acquired, we determined the campaigns and initiatives that needed to be implemented in these locations. We have organized several campaigns, including Adhi (Reusable Sanitary Napkin for tea workers), Duhita (Period Product Corner in underprivileged Madrasas and schools), Prantika (MHM Workshop for teenagers), Uthan Periye Dui Pa (Premise meeting by locally empowering women through ToT) etc. In these initiatives, we arranged medical camps, distributed menstrual hygiene kits, and held workshops to raise awareness of the issues. Currently, we are considering organizing campaigns in other areas as well.
   
   

3. Background Study & Comprehensive Survey for Financial Inclusion
   
   a) Surveys and Research on Marginalized Women
   
   Project Lorai has been working to improve the economic well-being of women from marginalized and deprived communities. We collect data to analyze previous experiences of our target people, how our training is improving their lives and to evaluate our work effectiveness. We do Focused Group Discussions (FGD), Surveys, and Key Informant Interviews (KII) to collect data.
   Purbo-Poshchim is a campaign initiated to improve the living standard of floating sex workers. Our research team has conducted a total of 112 KIIs and carried out a comprehensive case study of 26 trainees. Gorbhodharini undertakes the initiation of training programs designed for unskilled birth attendants. To assess the effectiveness of these programs and facilitate project evaluation, we have conducted KIIs involving 15 midwives. The insights gathered from these interviews have been utilized for documentation purposes as well. Bagh-bidhoba is engaged in rehabilitating women who have lost their husbands to tiger attacks. Our organization has conducted an FGD involving 12 participants and KIIs of 11 individuals.
   The primary objective of these surveys is to gather data regarding our beneficiaries to generate long-term outcomes through designing customized solutions.
   
   b) Baseline Survey on Farming Households of North Bengal
   
   One of the key components of our intervention for flood-prone farmers of Bangladesh is strong beneficiary selection criteria. The resources (Mainly funding) are limited and hence unfortunately we cannot assist all the farmers of one locality at a stretch. It is obvious that when you need to pick the 500 most needy farmers out of 7000 available, there has to be a criterion of some kind. The two things we rely on while designing the criteria are the financial condition of the user and the intent to develop his existing condition.
   
   The whole selection process is a three-tier journey- which starts with long-listing the farmers three months before the commencement of the cultivation season. Once the long listing is done, initial selection based on the generated criteria starts, which takes no less than two months. The final step is the baseline survey of shortlisted candidates. Through a two-day long program, a team of 15 volunteers conducts KIIs with every single farmer. The questionnaire of KII is wide-ranged, starting from their financial information to their farming practices, including dietary practice, family members’ details & occupational history. The responses are both manually & digitally recorded. To facilitate this whole survey process, GBF even developed a mobile application through its agro-tech partners.
   
   The response of the surveyed person assists us in making decisions on prioritizing or deprioritizing him/her in finalizing the beneficiary list, and to integrate need-based fresh points of intervention in our curated solution. To date (From 2019-2024) we have surveyed & profiled around 2200 cultivators in two different districts of Bangladesh.
   
   
   

4. Profiling of Sex Workers’ Children
   

   The first-ever profiling of Project Porthchola, an initiative of GBF for the social inclusion of sex workers’ children, was done in 2021 of a child named Tamanna. In 2022, the Child Sponsorship Program was initiated and the children of sex workers currently under this program are profiled. All basic information about the children like their age, sex, parents’ names, previous living conditions, and educational and medical backgrounds are collected to understand their context and provide support accordingly. The questionnaire for profiling the children has been designed by keeping all this in mind.

   By profiling these children, a comprehensive assessment of their needs, strengths, aspirations, and challenges is understood. As a result, the most appropriate interventions required to improve their lives can be identified and implemented. Until now, a total of 10 children have been profiled. Currently, only younger children whose mothers are sex workers are taken under the sponsorship program as they are more vulnerable and prone to being exploited due to the high-risk environment in which they grow up. Their mothers are also being rehabilitated, so they can leave their profession, and their daughters are not forced into the same cycle of exploitation. By profiling children of sex workers and implementing comprehensive support programs, these kids have a chance to escape the cycle of exploitation, receive the care they deserve, and have an opportunity to build a brighter future for themselves

Give Bangladesh Foundation (GBF) is a non-profit voluntary development platform registered in RJSC (S-12824) under the Companies Act, 1994. Since its establishment in 2018, GBF has been designing & executing different kinds of surveys (Focused Group Discussion, Baseline Surveys, Key Informant Interviews, etc) aimed at curating information for efficient solution planning for development challenges. Give Bangladesh has one project dedicated to working for marginalized children- addressing concerns regarding their education, extra-curricular activities & other basic needs. Another WASH project of GBF is striving to reduce the menstruation-affected school dropout rate for underserved female children. Approximately 500 children have been profiled & surveyed in different forms for project purposes.

To date, through its five curated projects and an emergency response platform, GBF has assisted 311,232+ below-poverty-line residents of Bangladesh. GBF has a wide-ranged local organizational network in 40+ districts of Bangladesh, which allows it to mobilize resource persons whenever & wherever required. For a technical & robust study of the concerned kind, a strongly framed field linkage & experience is necessary, with both of which GBF complies.