There are non-government organisations that address social community crisis and then there is Research Initiatives Bangladesh (RIB) that works behind the scenes while keeping abreast to finding solutions. Samira Shakur discusses the prospects of participatory action research with Executive Director at Research Initiatives Bangladesh, Meghna Guhathakurta.
Specializing in participatory action research, RIB aids in identifying the problems- “We are a research organisation that facilitates findings that enables people to identify the problems through discussions carried out by the people who are from the community or are linked with the community,” clarified Meghna.
Speaking about the role of RIB towards addressing adversities faced within the country, Meghna informed us about the process which is typically the basis of the participatory action carried out by the institution – “RIB endorses the situation from the capital sometimes financially and sometimes administratively, but most of the time we leave as much as possible to the local community to sort out the issue, which we then document,” Meghna shared.
Since its inception in 2003, RIB has been primarily focused in the northern part of the country, which is also known as the Monga area where the poverty stricken population is mostly concentrated. The institution has been, for a long time, aiding in various projects that mainly deal with the population that fall through easy access to basic services of the state – “We focus on various issues such as community legal services, civil society strengthening, safety measures and sometimes even for right to information in the northern region of the country – typically the zone where these rights fall at the most bottom periphery of priorities” Meghna elaborated.
Dinajpur, Nilphamari and Syedpur are amongst some of the regions in the northern stretch where RIB has been involved in projects of various moulds; that is also propitiously home to a lot of ethnic population in the country- “We have a lot of ethnic population who fall under our concerns, mostly Shantals, then there are the Oraos and the Dalits, who fall at the lowest ranking in the Hindu social excluded minority.”
Recently the organisation had the opportunity to work closely with the Shanthal population in Dinajpur, in collaboration with the German embassy. RIB is now working on a training centre which concerns primarily with the livelihood of the people living in the area -“The centre focuses on training methods such as sewing or handcrafting; and the beauty about it is that the management of the training centre will solely be in the hands of the Shantals to ensure sustainability.”
The organisation’s holistic approach to early childhood education, known as the Kajoli Early Childhood Development Program, has been playing a constructive role in promoting education for children from the age of three to five. While children who fall under the age group of above five are covered by government incentive, Kajoli Centres dotted across the most underprivileged rural parts of the country cover child protection. The concept was implemented by RIB back in 2005 by Dr. Shamsul Bari, the chairman of RIB, and today there are more than 150 centres scattered mostly around the northern region of the country, in fact, the model has also been applied within the Rohingya camps from 2011 to 2013 -“The goal of this model is not to promote education solely but to enjoy the entire experience of going to school and joyful learning through various models such as learning alphabets through visual associations,” Meghna smiled while explaining. The exceptional aspect of the model lies not only in its holistic approach but also in terms of women empowerment, where the mothers of the infants from the centres form a group and take up economic initiatives to donate money to the school, as well as provide mid-day meals to the children, “Each centre consists of 26 children with 26 mothers, who take turns to provide a basic khichuri meal for one school day in a month to the entire class; this way it caters to a very community friendly arrangement,” rendered a happy Meghna.
RIB also takes sustainable initiatives to make the bare necessities available to the vulnerable rural population. Meghna enlightened us about the project called STRIVE that addresses various safety net measures and health issues that are faced by the marginalised population and once again implementation of participatory based action research groups are done to identify what people identify as problems in their surroundings, “Free tests for women reproductive systems and vaccinations were provided, which was a challenge in certain conservative villages which we have been able to overcome with the help of the women leaders of those groups who established relationships with the female population in order to recognise the problems and needs,” Meghna mused.
Speaking of rural development projects which are on RIB’s agenda, Meghna informed us about a holistic method of agro ecological farming with those who fall under the category of marginalised farmers, “We started certain farmer schools in different districts, as well as the right to information (RTI) at the grassroots level, all of which are once again a part of RIB’s research participatory groups.”
On a final note she ended by saying, “we as an organisation document the needs of the marginalised people; we do not call them the poor as we believe they maybe lack in funds and natural resources but they also possess high levels of cultural resources and social abilities or are simply disadvantaged from the right point of view.”
Photograph by Sakib Muhtasim