Contents

The Hunger Project Online Briefing Program The Hunger Project in Bangladesh: Empowering Women Animators

Contents

As people committed to the end of hunger, we have used Units 1-4 to examine the link between the condition of women's lives and the persistence of hunger in Bangladesh and India. This journey has required that we confront the often harsh reality of women's subjugation, and their lack of voice in the decisions that affect their lives.

In Unit 5, we will begin to explore the flip side of this condition: the opportunity for transformation. This unit will look at The Hunger Project's partnership with the women and men of Bangladesh, who are taking a stand to create communities free from hunger.

In Unit 5, we will learn about some of the workshops, trainings, and measurable results that our partners in Bangladesh have achieved. In particular, we will experience the critical contributions of grassroots women, whose empowerment has become THP-Bangladesh's highest priority.

As investors and activists in The Hunger Project, we are key stakeholders in this work. By experiencing the success of our partners in Bangladesh, we are more powerfully poised to speak about it to others, and to seize the opportunity to create, together, a future free from hunger.

In Unit 1, we looked in depth at Bangladesh today. In the following section, we will revisit some of the critical breakthroughs made by Bangladesh since its independence from Pakistan in 1971. Please revisit Unit 1 for more details.

  Shortly after its independence in 1971, there were many experts who felt that Bangladesh was a nation without a future. Prominent experts called Bangladesh "a basket case." Because of its rapid population growth, its tiny land area, its meager resources and its frequent natural disasters, many people predicted that Bangladesh would be hopelessly trapped in a permanent series of famines by the 1980s or 1990s.

The reality is very different. Bangladesh has survived and progressed. In seeking to overcome the challenges of extreme poverty and its geography, causing frequent flooding from monsoons and cyclones, it has achieved breakthroughs that are being applied in other nations.

• Population Growth: International reports praise the dramatic progress Bangladesh has made in the past decade: it has doubled the rate of contraceptive use and has reduced the average family size from seven children to three. Today, most Bangladeshi women say they want only two or three children.

• Food Production: Bangladesh has now almost achieved food self-sufficiency, and has begun to export rice.

• Democracy: In the past decade, and despite continued conflicts and instability, Bangladesh has established and maintained a multi-party democracy, from the national level to the local level.

• Private Sector: Bangladesh's rapidly growing private sector is attracting more and more foreign investment. A garment industry has sprung up in the past decade, which now provides jobs to more than one million Bangladeshis, primarily women.

• Health: Oral rehydration therapy—a simple home cure for diarrhea that is saving the lives of millions of young children—was invented in Bangladesh, and has been taught to virtually every woman in the country.

• Microcredit: The people of Bangladesh have proved to the world, through Prof. Muhammad Yunus's pioneering Grameen Bank, that you can invest in the poor - that poor women have the highest loan repayment rate in the world, and are some of its most creative entrepreneurs.

• Education: Working together, UNICEF and a major Bangladeshi organization, BRAC, have created a breakthrough in lowering the cost and improving the quality of education through a village-based approach.

In Unit 2, we explored the persistence of hunger in Bangladesh. The following section looks again at the most critical points. Please revisit Unit 2 for more details.

• A greater percentage of hungry people live in South Asia, than in any other region in the world. Over 400 million people in the region go hungry every day.

• Hunger in South Asia persists not because of famine or natural disaster.

• Chronic hunger persists because people lack opportunity - to earn enough money, to be educated and gain skills, to meet basic health needs and to have a voice in the decisions that affect their lives and their communities

• Bangladesh is home to 128.1 million people. Its rural villages include 80% of the country's population, or 100 million people.

• Bangladesh has one of the highest population densities in the world. If the entire global population moved into the territory of the United States, even then the United States would not have as many people per square foot of land as Bangladesh.

• More than half of Bangladesh's population survives in absolute poverty - the highest ratio in South Asia.

• For every 1000 children that are born, 81 die before they reach age 1.

• For every 100,000 births, 440 women die in childbirth.

• Bangladesh has the highest rates of malnutrition in the world.

• 1/2 of all babies born are underweight. For children under age 5, 56% are underweight and malnourished.

• The persistence of malnutrition and hunger is intricately linked to the poor health and nutrition of women throughout their lives. In Unit 4, we examine this link in depth.

• Social conditions in Bangladesh mean that women are second class citizens, subjugated from birth to death. Women and girls eat last in least in the family, receive less health care than their brothers, are less educated and overworked. They have poor nutrition and have little additional care when they are pregnant.

• 70% of women in Bangladesh are themselves malnourished. Yet, women are the principal providers of nourishment to children, both before birth and after birth.

• Women suffer from mineral deficiencies and deficiencies in iodine, iron, and Vitamin A. When they are pregnant, they gain only half of the weight necessary for a healthy birth.

• The social conditions that keep women subjugated, and suppress their contributions, must be addressed for hunger and poverty to end.

• After liberation, a climate of chaos and famine existed in Bangladesh.

• The international community responded to this situation by sending Bangladesh huge amounts of foreign aid.

• Since independence in 1971, Bangladesh has received more than $22 billion in grant aid and loan commitments from foreign donors, including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the UN Development Program, the United States, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and a number of West European countries.

• 80% of its development expenditure has been financed by foreign sources.

• Despite steady increases in external aid over the years, aid has brought little real improvement in the lives of rural people.

• Large-scale, top-down aid programs cannot address the realities of life for grassroots people.

• Much foreign aid has been spent on heavily capitalized infrastructure projects, which do not draw on the skills and knowledge of people themselves.

• Massive external aid flows, coupled with state support for the private sector, has allowed corruption to thrive among a small segment of Bangladeshi entrepreneurs and civil and military officials.

• Bangladesh is home to some of the largest NGOs in the world, whose work has set precedents worldwide.

• BRAC—Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, is an NGO with deep roots in Bangladesh society. It began as a relief and rehabilitation effort in February 1972.  BRAC is widely regarded as the pioneer in "scaling up"— making an national-level impact that goes far beyond typical small-scale NGO projects.

• By 1995, BRAC emerged as one of the largest NGOs in the world, with a total membership of 1.5 million, 85% of whom are women.

• Bangladesh is the birthplace of the micro-credit movement, spearheaded by Prof. Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank (pictured at left).  Grameen has become an internationally reputed bank for the poor, whose techniques have been duplicated around the world.

• Grameen has used millions of dollars in international grants to administer micro-credit loans almost exclusively to women, whose traditional responsibility for all areas of social development make them the key players in the struggle to eliminate hunger and poverty.

For many Bangladeshis, the legacy of large scale aid projects has taken its toll, by creating a mindset of resignation and dependency. This is the same resignation that people feel around the world, when confronted with the challenge of chronic hunger.

• Several years ago, Professor Badiul Majumdar, Country Director of The Hunger Project Bangladesh, spoke about this mindset of resignation.

• Dr. Majumdar said, "The international aid community considers Bangladesh 'the basket case of nations.' Billions of dollars of charity, while well-meant, has promoted a 'dependency mindset' - and we Bangladeshis are hooked. The more aid we receive, the more we seem to need.

• "But even massive aid from foreign governments and well-meaning charitable institutions has not helped us to end poverty in Bangladesh. And because we think we are in constant need of more money, sustainability is out of the question. What happen when the money runs out or the donors' priorities change?

• "Charity is not going to save Bangladesh, and yet the charity mindset pervades everything - it shapes how we look at ourselves and how donors see themselves

The obstacles to ending hunger are deeply entrenched in Bangladeshi society.  On a daily basis, hungry people face the challenge of providing for their families in the face of traditional prejudices, unjust laws, corruption, failed economic policies, and the severe subjugation of women.  

These are obstacles that cannot be overcome through large scale aid programs, that are not created and managed by local people themselves.  Neither can they be addressed by small-scale interventions, that ignore the system of the persistence of chronic hunger. 

When we work strategically in The Hunger Project, we aim to uncover what's missing overall - that if provided - would cause the biggest breakthrough in ending hunger.

The following pages look at two pieces to what's missing to end hunger in Bangladesh: 1) Vision and people's participation, and 2) Women's empowerment as agents of change.

There is an alternative to the mindset of resignation. This alternative is creating a vision.

 

Vision

• People's creation of a vision - for an alternative future from the one they face - is often what's missing in large scale aid projects and charitable approaches.

• As traditional wisdom teaches, Where there is no vision, the people perish.

• This vision extends beyond the intended outcomes of individual projects and programs.  

• What is missing is a new vision of a hunger-free, self-reliant Bangladeshi society - where people see themselves as key actors in creating prosperous and healthy communities, and a vibrant Bangladesh. 

• This is the "Golden Bangla" that Bangladesh's people envisioned when they fought for the country's liberation in 1971.

• For women in Bangladesh - who are denied equal treatment and equal opportunity throughout their lives - envisioning a new future for themselves,  their families and the greater community may seem like an impossible task.

• A network of grassroots people's organizations have been created in the villages of Bangladesh in recent years, which are working to achieve a new future.

• Local people's groups around the country are working to generate income and take action in their communities. 

• There are more than 20,000 local people's groups that receive local and central government financial support, as well as many more that do not.

• These groups are taking action on the village level to address the needs of their communities.

In Bangladesh, the authentic partnership and equality of women is the most critical missing link for achieving the end of hunger.  Unit 4 explored the life of a woman in Bangladesh, and the social conditions that prevent her from realizing her rightful role in society.

• In Unit 4, we looked at the life of a Bangladeshi or Indian woman, from birth until widowhood. Her life is not an easy one - she is unwanted, disadvantaged, threatened by violence, overworked, and even outcast.

• In spite of these harsh conditions, she is a critical provider for her family and a key producer for her country.

• Bangladeshi society - as in many developing countries - holds women responsible for all the key actions required to end hunger: family nutrition, health, education, food production and – increasingly – family income.

• Yet at the same time – through laws, custom and tradition – women are denied the resources, the information and freedom of action they need to carry out these responsibilities. This situation holds hunger in place.

• The experience of the world shows that in societies where women have equal opportunities and a voice in the decisions that affect their lives, hunger can end.

The Hunger Project-Bangladesh is dedicated to providing what's missing in the nation's struggle to end hunger and poverty.  In all 64 districts of the country, The Hunger Project is a dynamic, living people's movement, reaching hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis. The message of people's mobilization in THP-Bangladesh has spread through the country in the same way that the message of investment in the end of hunger is passed along through our global constituency.

THP-Bangladesh

• The Hunger Project-Bangladesh was born out of the realization that hunger will end only when women and men are mobilized to take action themselves, based on their own vision of a future free from hunger.

• In 1993, under the leadership of Prof. Badiul Majumdar, THP-Bangladesh launched a two-prong strategy:
  (1) mobilizing grassroots people for self-reliant action
  (2) enlisting the support of committed leaders from all sectors of society who can clear away obstacles and link grassroots people to the resources they need to build lives free from hunger.

• The Hunger Project today is Bangladesh's largest volunteer-based organization committed to a hunger-free, self-reliant future.

• The work of the THP-Bangladesh has unleashed a movement of people around the country, committed to realizing a vision of a hunger-free, self-reliant Bangladesh.

• Since 1990, The Hunger Project in Bangladesh has brought together an alliance of government officials, leaders of local organizations, journalists, businesspeople, religious and academic leaders and thousands of volunteers, united in this campaign.

• The Hunger Project has become the largest volunteer-based organization for development in Bangladesh. Volunteers take action in the areas that they define as critical to ending hunger in their communities.

• Hunger Project volunteers have trained thousands of youth to raise fish and poultry. Thousands of families have built irrigation systems that enable them to grow three crops a year, freeing them from poverty. Volunteers have planted 500,000 trees, built 8,000 sanitary latrines and run 120 schools.

• The Hunger Project mobilizes entire villages through special activities like development camps, where THP volunteers go door to door, to ensure that each and every member of the community can participate in creating a new future.

• Through Youth Ending Hunger, The Hunger Project mobilizes thousands of young women and men across the country, who carry out campaigns for literacy, health, nutrition and human rights.

In Bangladesh, the empowerment of women - and unleashing their vision of a new future - is the strategic action for a new future.  As stakeholders in The Hunger Project around the world, supporting women's full participation at all levels of society, and in all of our work in Bangladesh, is critical to ending hunger.

• When women are mobilized to take action, they address the critical issues that end hunger in their communities. These include health, education, nutrition, sanitation, income-generation, and awareness building about the issues that hold women's subjugation in place.

• Their work is not easy. For individual women, it means finding the courage to step forth in the face of violence and opposition, and to juggle the burdens of multiple responsibilities and tedious work.

• It means confronting thousands of years of tradition, which keep women subjugated, marginalized and disempowered.

• It means breaking through the mindset of dependency and resignation that has both women and men believe they are powerless to create a new future.

• The Hunger Project is committed to unleashing the leadership of women at all levels of Bangladeshi society.

• In the sections to come, we will look at the process of mobilization for women in particular.

• We will have the chance to grapple with the daily struggles that women experience in their work as change agents for a hunger free Bangladesh.

• We will see the progress of a woman as she participates in The Hunger Project's Vision, Commitment and Action Workshop, in the Animator Training, and as she takes a stand - as a catalyst for a Hunger Free Zone in her community.  

    VCAW
       ¯
         Animators
       ¯
        Trainers and Catalysts
       ¯
        Hunger Free Zones

The Vision, Commitment and Action Workshop

• In the VCAW, participants break through the mindset of resignation and dependency, to create a vision of a hunger-free, self-reliant Bangladesh.

• Under the leadership of a Hunger-Project trained facilitator, participants look together at the goals that they wish to achieve in their village. They discover - often with an outpouring of surprise and joy - that they have all the resources and creativity they need in their villages to end hunger.

• They realize that their vision is achievable and affordable, and that their personal responsibility will make the difference. At the end of the workshop, the participants mobilize to take simple, high impact actions.

• For many women, attending The Hunger Project's Vision Commitment and Action workshop is the first time that they've set foot outside of their family's hut. It is their first experience meeting with a group of other women and men in their communities.

• After a lifetime of doing only what they have been told, women who take the VCAW discover - for the first time in their lives - that they possess the power to actually change conditions they have considered both intolerable and hopeless.

• As a result of the VCAW, people have taken action including planting 400,000 trees, installing 6,000 sanitary latrines, installing 300 tubewells, training 3,000 youth in poultry and fish-farming.

• When I got to the meeting, there was a group of women and men, sitting outside in a circle.

• Many of the women kept their veils over their faces, and looked nervous to be there. I had never even seen a group like this, with so many women and men from outside of my family.

• When the workshop began, I was shocked to see that another woman stood up and introduced herself as the leader. I didn't know this was possible in my country. I didn't know that women could stand up and lead.

• For the first two days of the workshop, I was very shy. I couldn't speak. I had never interacted with other women. And I was afraid that my husband would be angry.

• At the end of the second day, I finally got the courage to speak up. I told the women in the group about my life and the difficulties I face. We spoke together about the challenges of life in this village.

• It was so wonderful for me to talk to the other women, and to see that their lives were so similar to mine.

• The animator training is a 4-day workshop in which men and women discover their commitment to catalyze action for a future free from hunger. 

• The training prepares people to mobilize and organize grassroots action. It fosters a deep understanding of the principles of The Hunger Project, and includes the three-hour Vision, Commitment and Action Workshop, which animators learn to lead in their communities.

• The animator training increasingly reflects The Hunger Project-Bangladesh’s commitment to women’s empowerment as the key to social progress in areas of health, education, nutrition, sanitation and income generation.

• It explores the critical link between women’s malnutrition, their subjugation, and the persistence of hunger in Bangladeshi society. These issues are the focus of action for both men and women animators.

• At the end of the training, the participants create an action plan for their villages for the next 3 months.

• Azima Begum is an experienced Hunger Project animator in the southern region of Bangladesh. After taking the animator training, she created a women's organization called Mahila Tarun, for women living below the subsistence poverty level.

• Azima and the 30 women declared that they would take responsibility for removing hunger and poverty from their village.

• The women began by learning their rights. They began to save rice weekly to sell at the end of the week. Together, they have saved 75,000 Taka (the currency of Bangladesh). 10 of the women have also launched a peanut project, where they invested 5,000, and have earned a profit of 9000 Taka.  They are planning additional agricultural projects in which they participate in every step of the production process.

• Today, every woman in the locality is literate. Every child above 5 years old goes to school regularly. They are working to establish more women's organizations in neighboring villages.

• When women are empowered as change agents, they take actions that alter the social structures that keep women unequal and hold hunger in place.

• Women animators have formed women’s self-help groups, created their own enterprises and increased their incomes.

• They have facilitated other women to step out of their household, become literate and learn their legal rights – in the home and in society.

• Women animators have become elected leaders in local government.

• They have campaigned against domestic violence and sex trafficking. They speak out, challenge old ideas, and create new partnerships between women and men.

• Women’s participation is transforming gender relations within their families — the so-called private sphere where the subjugation of women is most deeply entrenched.

• The husbands of Hunger Project animators report a dramatic enrichment in their own lives.  The gross inequality between the husbands and their wives has vanished, as their wives have had the opportunity to lead lives of meaning and purpose.

• Dramatically increasing the number of women trained as animators is The Hunger Project's highest priority.  In the past five years, The Hunger Project has trained 800 women as animators.

• This year, the Bangladeshi team set an ambitious target of 700 new women animators as a critical mass for taking the message of a hunger-free future to all districts of the country.

• As of July 2000, 500 women have already taken the training.

"It is our responsibility to make women understand, whoever is strong in spirit will never remain poor."

"We women face many barriers, but sometimes we are our own barriers -we think, it's okay, I'm eating. But when we can do something good together, we wake up."

-Women animators/catalysts

• One obstacle to women’s effectiveness as animators is the lack of any support system, as they juggle the burdens of their many responsibilities and the social barriers to their freedom of movement.

• Women animators have expressed the need to come together — to strategize and energize each other.

• This year, the team designed a powerful animator empowerment program, to ensure that women have the support they need to contribute to their communities.

• Beginning in April, The Hunger Project-Bangladesh launched a monthly empowerment program in 40 areas, each of which has between 25 and 75 animators.

• In animator empowerment meetings, the critical importance of women’s empowerment comes to the fore — both through discussions with women and men, and in planning for strategic action.

• As a result of these meetings, women animators have formed more than 25 grassroots women’s organizations, which are engaging in income generation, savings and credit activities, and social awareness building.

I was sent here with a mission, and I am going to fulfill that mission."

"We can learn each moment. We are getting stronger and more confident. There is no limit."

-Women speaking at the first ever training of women trainers

• A cadre of women trainers is key to dramatically expanding the number of trained women animators in Bangladesh.

• Women trainers are role models for the new women animators that they train, in both the animators training, as well as other workshops including the VCAW. 

• Women trainers make a bold statement to the men that they work with.  In Bangladesh, where women's leadership is rarely cultivated, having women leaders brings an added sensitivity and insight to the critical issue of women's subjugation. Women trainers are taking a new message to both men and women and are reshaping society's expectations. 

• In March, 31 women from around the country came together in Dhaka, to become the first cadre of women trainers.

• For four remarkable days, they shared their experiences as women in Bangladesh, and the difficulties they faced in spite of certain privileges.

• One woman described how critical her parents were to developing her own leadership. Although her family was poor and hungry, her parents stood for her having a different future than other girls, and encouraged her to go to school and university. She is now a teacher and moved by the vision of her parents. 

• One woman shared how she brought up 3 children on her own when her husband was crippled in an accident. She described the challenge of enrolling her in-laws to support her work.  Today, all three of her children are studying at the university level.

• Together, these remarkable women strengthened their leadership skills and committed themselves to standing for the empowerment of their sisters.

• On 27 June, 15 of the trainees came together again to discuss the accomplishments of recent months. Since the March training, the women have conducted more than 65 Vision, Commitment and Action Workshops.

• They have attended six animator trainings, eight catalyst meetings, 15 regional animator meetings, and eight Youth Ending Hunger meetings.

• A Hunger Free Zone is a group of villages and villagers who have taken a stand to completely remove hunger from their area.

• Several animators work together in a HFZ, to mobilize villagers in their work.

• In each Hunger Free Zone, an experience animator - called a catalyst - takes responsibility for ensuring that the Hunger Free Zone is successful.

• Catalysts work together with villagers, local leaders, district government, media, and other NGOs to "catalyze" action. Rather than implement specific projects, catalysts create a phenomenon of action and local responsibility for the community.

• Catalysts and villagers asses the progress of HFZs by using the 40-point measurement protocol.

• The "40 points" give villagers an opportunity to measure their own progress in areas such as women's empowerment, health, education, and awareness building.

• As country director, Prof. Badiul Majumdar, says: "The instrument lists all the areas where improvements are needed, and can be used for planning future action. The most attractive aspect is that the villagers realize that many of the actions for the end of hunger are cost-free and require only creation of awareness."

• At the beginning of 1999, there were 64 Zones working towards becoming Hunger-Free. THP-Bangladesh has set out to launch 200 new Hunger Free Zones by the end of December, 2000.

• This year, The Hunger Project has set a target of 70 new women catalysts on the team.

• The accomplishments of women catalysts and the HFZ residents are significant.

• Ferdous Ara is the catalyst of the Barandipara Hunger Free Zone, population 2,977, in the Southern Region of Bangladesh. Her Hunger Free Zone was declared in 1999.  As of March 2000, 150 village women and 70 village men are participating in the Hunger Free Zone process.

• 20 women have taken The Hunger Project's skills training, and are engaging in income generating activities. Women have started their own businesses, including handicrafts, tailoring, and fisheries, and have joined together to start saving co-operatives.  Women who earn an income often spend this money on the well-being of their children and their families.

• Three local organizations have been created for women's empowerment and joint savings.

• The Alor Pathik Women Development Organization has mobilized 50 women to create self-employment and generate awareness about education, health, environment and legal rights.

The future of Bangladesh resides in the future of its girls.  When girls in Bangladesh are supported and valued at every stage of their lives, there will be a very new future for Bangladesh. 

• This October 1st will be the first ever National Girl Child Day in Bangladesh.  This annual event will be a powerful step in building the national will needed to transform life for girl children. Its success will depend on support and advocacy at all levels of society.

• The Hunger Project, in partnership with local NGOs, government, and women's groups intends to carry out mass awareness actions on the importance of investing in the health, education and nutrition of girls until all gender gaps between girls and boys disappear.

• The Hunger Project intends to generate powerful media coverage and support, by introducing newspaper and television coverage that celebrates the girl child.

• A crucial element of the National Girl Day Strategy is to fully involve Bangladesh’s rural population—the vast majority of the country’s people.

• The Hunger Project will use its own animator and volunteer-based strategy to ensure that the celebrations reach out to villagers in every district of the country.

• The Hunger Project will work with people's organizations and local government chairs to organize celebrations at the local levels, so that all people in the nation have the opportunity to participate.

• Essay contests on this subject will be held in village schools across the country.

The complex and diverse challenges facing the rural people of Bangladesh can only be solved when local people can make their own decisions, mobilize resources, and manage programs to meet their own needs.  The Hunger Project is exploring ways to work with democratic institutions in the villages of Bangladesh, despite their current limitations.

• Democracy in Bangladesh is relatively new.

• The current democratic structure was established in 1991. Although elections are being held, democratic practices have not yet taken hold in Bangladesh.

• Exploitation and corruption are endemic at both local and national levels.  National strikes often replace debate.

• Democracy at the village level is vital for ending hunger. 

• As Nobel Prize winning economist Prof. Amartya Sen has written, "democracy is not only the goal of development, it is the primary means of development."

• In Bangladesh in 1997, democratic decision making was extended to local levels.

• New legislation established elected local councils, called Union Parishads.

• These democratic institutions are assigned responsibilities for promoting participatory action for economic development, health, education and other issues of immediate importance in the day-to-day life of rural people.

• One of the most visionary provisions of the new legislation is that 30% of the seats in the local councils are reserved for women.

• This provides grassroots women an unprecedented opportunity to participate in local decision making in Bangladesh.

• When women become elected representatives, it enables them to become change agents for development issues,  as well as role models. 

• It points the way to what is possible in a future of women's equality and full participation.

• Despite the opportunity they provide, local democratic institutions in Bangladesh are fragile. 

• They exist only through legislation - which can change - rather than being enshrined in the constitution.

•  Local democratic institutions have no guaranteed access to financial resources. 

• Very little power has been transferred to local bodies from the existing administrative services to enable them to operate locally accountable programmes for health, education and development.

• To overcome these limitations, it is critical that government, donor agencies, NGOs and all organizations committed to the well-being of grassroots people, commit themselves to the success of grassroots democracy.

• Empowerment through information, training and responsibility for local project management can maximize the chances for local democracy and women's participation to succeed.

 On September 23rd, we will officially launch our campaign to empower grassroots women in Bangladesh and India. At the event, we will have the extraordinary opportunity to be together with the grassroots women who are taking action for a hunger-free future for their communities.

For us - as Hunger Project investors - being with and hearing from these women is an opportunity to deepen our partnership with our South Asian sisters. A tremendous sense of solidarity will be available for ourselves and for the grassroots women, when 1600 Hunger Project investors from around the world join together to hear their voices, and their stories.

Also at the event, there will be an exhibition and videos that vividly portray the life of a South Asian woman.  We will release two new publications on women's leadership in Bangladesh and India, with entertainment by South Asian musicians.

If you have not done so already, contact Marty Corley, mlc@thp.org today to reserve your seat on September 23rd.  Your presence will be critical¾ as you join with Hunger Project supporters from around the world¾ to be one team on the field¾ as investors in a common future¾ of prosperity and social justice for Bangladesh and India.

Congratulations on finishing unit 5 of the online briefing program. This unit has looked at The Hunger Project in Bangladesh, and the work of women animators as change agents for a future free from hunger.

• Major challenges: large population, meager resources, frequent natural disasters

• Real breakthroughs: food production, Microcredit, Oral rehydration therapy

• Persistent hunger: highest malnutrition rates in the world, more than half of population living in poverty

• Large scale interventions: aid-driven, large scale development does not address grassroots realities

• Mindset of dependency and resignation: holds back progress and people's participation

• What's missing for progress: people's vision of a new future and women's full participation

• The Hunger Project-Bangladesh: largest volunteer-based people's movement in Bangladesh, working to provide what’s missing

• Commitment to women: women address the critical issues that end hunger in their communities

• Vision, Commitment and Action Workshop: starting point for mobilization, more than 250,000 Bangladeshis have participated and created their vision

• Animator training: 4-day workshop to catalyze grassroots action - training high numbers of women animators is THP's highest priority

• Women animators as change agents: women animators address issues of health, education, sanitation, and challenge social evils including domestic violence and dowry

• Hunger-Free Zones: villagers take a stand to complete remove hunger from their area - experienced animators facilitate process using 40 point measurement tool

• National Girl Child Day: On October 1^st, rural and urban Bangladeshis will focus attention on the importance of investing in girls

• Local Government: growing opportunity to address complex challenges people face

• September 23^rd: THP will officially launch strategy to empower women in Bangladesh