Bangladesh Political Map

Bangladesh Elevation Map

BRAC Organization Website

Grameen Foundation Organization Website

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“BRAC is in business to end poverty.… BRAC works with people whose lives are dominated by extreme poverty, illiteracy, disease, and other constraints.... BRAC strives to create wealth, better health and improve their quality of life,” says Fazle Hasan Abed, BRAC Chairman and CEO.
           
At an information session at the Open Society Institute in New York on September 24, 2007, a 10-minute video was presented to the audience. The video addressed deficiency and scarcity in the slums of Bangladesh.

“Millions died and many more became refugees after the 1971 war,” said the narrator of the video. A year after the war the 1971 War of Liberation in Bangladesh, BRAC was founded and established itself as a revolution for poverty.
           
Unlike many charity organizations, BRAC provides the underprivileged with resources and access to financial services as well as granting them jobs so they can have a steady income to support their families. 30% of BRAC’s funding comes from donors; the rest, 70%, is self-generated from BRAC's microfinance and business programs.

“Bangladesh is the Wall Street of development,” says Susan M, Davis, President and CEO of BRAC USA. Although BRAC originated in Bangladesh, they have spread their business across nations such as Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Tanzania and Southern Sudan, with offices in the US and UK. But BRAC wants to ultimately extend its mission across the world, helping it to become a global entity.
           
Abed explained that because BRAC is much more than just a local Bangladesh project, the acronym, BRAC, has been creatively labeled as “Building Resources Across Communities."

“Whatever country we go to, we’d like to make a difference. The challenge is to link the poor people to global markets,” says Abed.
           
As well as providing the needy with an income, BRAC has also arranged for an education to 1.5 million children. The organization aspires to give all children an education, though. In Bangladesh, BRAC is helping girls who can’t afford to go to school or stay enrolled for long. As Marian Wright Edelman, Co-convener of Global Women’s Action Network for Children, said, “Africa and the world needs to learn BRAC’s magic.”

Copyright 2007