Empowerment
Empowering the Disempowered
Lack of empowerment and poverty is a chronic and complex problem for Bangladesh. According to the UNDP HDI report (2006), which measures the average progress of a country in human development in terms of life expectancy, adult literacy and enrolment at the primary, secondary and tertiary level, Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), etc., Bangladesh ranks 137th among 177 countries. Moreover, 50% of the total population of Bangladesh lives below the poverty line, defined as an income of less than a dollar a day.
Some of the major factors contributing to this situation are inequality in income distribution, lack of access to resources, lack of access to information and inadequate infrastructure. The rural people of Bangladesh especially are deprived of these facilities, which is a major issue to break out from the shackles of poverty prevailing in the country.
Empowerment is a key constituent towards poverty reduction, and it is a key driver for sustainable development. It is a process whereby the capacity of individuals or groups are enhanced to make important choices and decisions, and to transform those choices and decisions into desired actions and outcomes. This, in turn, helps them to secure a better and more prosperous life.
We firmly believe that we have significant contribution to make on this key issue. In our CSR journey, we have become the proud sponsor of Bangladesh Special Olympics team, which won 71 medals in the Special Olympic Games 2007 in Beijing, China. Six acid survivors have been assisted in their rehabilitation process with employment opportunities in Grameenphone. We have initiated the Information Boat project with Care Bangladesh with an aim to empower riverine rural communities with digitized livelihood contents and internet access while the CSR partnership with Ashokti Punorbshon Nibash (APON) aims to support treatment and rehabilitation of economically-disadvantaged drug addicts.
We acknowledge that development and poverty reduction depend on holistic economic prosperity. Therefore, our aim is to increase development opportunities, enhance development outcomes and contribute towards improvement of the quality of life of the people through our CSR initiatives and innovative services. We are committed to facilitate empowerment opportunities to the vulnerable people of Bangladesh, so that it enables them to better influence the course of their lives and live a life of their own choice.
Related CSR initiatives:
→ Every win counts - Partnership with Special Olympics Bangladesh
→ Every information counts - Information Boat Project
→ Every hand counts - Skill Development Center
→ Every confidence counts - Rehabilitation for Acid Survivors