2. INTRODUCTION
• BRAC stands for Bangladesh Rural
Advancement Committee.
• BRAC, an international development
organization based in Bangladesh, is the
largest non-governmental development
organization in the world, measured by the
number of employees and the number of
people it has helped
3. • Established by Sir Fazle Hasan Abed in 1972 soon after the
independence of Bangladesh.
• Its Headquarter is in DHAKA,
• BANGLADESH.
• BRAC is present in all 64 districts of Bangladesh as well as in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Tanzania, South
Sudan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Haiti and The Philippines
4. • BRAC employs over 100,000 people,
roughly 70 percent of whom are
women, reaching more than 126
million people. The organization is
70-80% self-funded through a
number of commercial enterprises
that include a dairy and food project
and a chain of retail handicraft stores
called Aarong. BRAC maintains
offices in 14 countries throughout
the world, including BRAC USA and
BRAC UK
5. What is unique about BRAC?
• It is , its method of pulling people out of
poverty. As one author has said, “BRAC’s idea
was simple yet radical: bring together the
poorest people in the poorest countries and
teach them to read, think for themselves, pool
their resources, and start their own businesses”.
This is exactly what BRAC has done and is still
doing in Bangladesh and ten other poverty-
stricken countries around the world
6. • BRAC has organized the isolated poor and
learned to understand their needs by finding
practical ways to increase their access to
resources, support their entrepreneurship and
empower them to become agents of change.
Women and girls have been the focus of
BRAC’s anti-poverty approach; BRAC
recognizes both their vulnerabilities and thirst
for change
7. • In April 2009, Freedom from Want, a book
that traces the evolution of BRAC by author
Ian Smillie.
8. Mission & Vision
→ VISION OF BRAC.
“ A world free from all forms of exploitation and
discrimination where everyone has the opportunity to
realize their potential. ”
→ MISSION OF BRAC.
“Our mission is to empower people and communities in
situations of poverty, illiteracy, disease and social
injustice. Our interventions aim to achieve large scale,
positive changes through economic and social
programmes that enable men and women to realize
their potential.”
9. Objectives
• Economic development
BRAC’s Economic Development programme includes
microcredit(small loans).
Village Organizations provide loans to poverty groups.
BRAC has reached out to those who, due to extreme
poverty, cannot access microfinance. BRAC defines such
people suffering from extreme poverty as the 'ultra poor',
and has designed a programme customized for this group
that combines subsidy with enterprise development
training, healthcare, social development and asset transfer,
eventually pulling the ultra poor into its mainstream
microfinance programme.
10. • In addition to microfinance, BRAC provides
enterprise training and support to its member
borrowers.
BRAC also has a number of
commercial programmes that
contribute to the sustainability
of BRAC’s development
programmes since returns
from the commercial
programmes are channeled
back into BRAC’s development
activities. These programmes
include Aarong, a retail
handicraft chain, BRAC Dairy
and Food Project, and BRAC
Salt.
11. • Education
• BRAC’s Non-Formal Primary Education programme
provides five-year primary education course in four
years to poor, rural, disadvantaged children and drop-
outs who cannot access formal schooling.
• BRAC has set up centres for adolescents called Kishori
Kendra that provide reading material and serve as a
gathering place for adolescents where they are
educated about issues sensitive to the Bangladeshi
society
12. • BRAC University
• The university was established by
BRAC in 2001 under the Private
University Act 1992. BRAC University
had its first convocation in January
2006. Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, KCMG is
the Chairperson of the Board of
Trustees of BRAC University.
• In 2011, Webometrics ranked this
university first among private
universities, fourth in Bangladesh and
76th in the Indian subcontinent in
their World Universities Ranking based
on electronic publication, scientific
results and international activities
13.
14. • Public health
BRAC started providing public healthcare in 1972 with
an initial focus on curative care through paramedics
and a self-financing health insurance scheme.
BRAC has implemented a program in which midwives
are trained to work in the homes of women to ensure
that births are as risk-free as possible. As of December
2007, 70,000 community health volunteers and 18,000
health workers have been trained and mobilized by
BRAC to deliver door-to-door health care services to
the rural poor.
15. • It has established 37 static health centres and
a Limb and Brace Fitting Centre that provides
low cost devices and services for the
physically disabled.
16. • Social development
• In 1996, BRAC started a programme in
collaboration with the Ain O Shalish Kendra (ASK)
and Bangladesh National Women Leader’s
Association (BNWLA) to empower women to
protect themselves from social discrimination and
exploitation
• The programme has two components: the Social
Development component and the Human Rights
and Legal Services component.
18. • Disaster relief
BRAC conducted one of the largest NGO responses to
Cyclone Sidr which hit vast areas of the south-western
coast in Bangladesh in mid-November 2007. BRAC
distributed emergency relief materials, including food
and clothing, to over 900,000 survivors, provided
medical care to over 60,000 victims and secured safe
supplies of drinking water. BRAC is now focusing on
long-term rehabilitation, which will include agriculture
support, infrastructure reconstruction and livelihood
regeneration
19. BRAC has done many operations outside Bangladesh in
countries such as Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan ,Tanzania
Haiti, Philippines during natural disaster.
20. • “BRAC has done what few others have – they
have achieved success on a massive scale,
bringing life-saving health programs to
millions of the world's poorest people. They
remind us that even the most intractable
health problems are solvable, and inspire us
to match their success throughout the
developing world.” – Bill Gates
21. • BRAC Awards
• Gates Award for Global Health (Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation), 2004
• CGAP Financial Transparency Award, 2005 &
2006
• Independence Award (Shadhinata Puroshkar),
2007
• The Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, 2008
• Devex Top 40 Development Innovator, 2011
• #1 Nonprofit in International Microfinance (2012)
• #1 in Top 100 Best NGOs in 2013 (2013)
