2. NGO Profile
• Name of the NGO: Nagorik Uddyog (The Citizen’s Initiative).
• Established In: 1995
• Head of the NGO: Zakir Hossain (Chief Executive).
• Board of Directors: An executive committee consisting of 10 members
including the chief executive.
• Basic Areas of Operation: Providing justice, women development, human
rights awareness, information rights providing etc.
• Working Areas: Working on 9 different districts and among them on 92
different regions.
• Address: House # 8/14, Block-B, Lalamatia, Dhaka-1207, Bangladesh.
• Email: nu@bdmail.net.
• Fax: 8802-9141511.
• Phone: 8802-8115868.
• Website: www.nuhr.org
3.
4. Access to Justice
• NU believes in the necessity of more affordable and accessible systems of justice
than that inherent in Bangladesh’s existing formal court and judicial systems. The
lack of awareness among poor people of their civil rights compounds the issue. NU
thus strives to see an increase in administrative participation and stronger
representative structures at the grassroots level, giving poor people improved
access to justice and other social services irrespective of gender or social class.
Table: - Status of Monetary Realization (2009-2010).
6. Women Empowerment
• Women remain among the most vulnerable and disempowered groups in
Bangladesh. Cultural practices such as early
marriage, polygamy, dowry, female seclusion, and arbitrary (oral) divorce
contribute to women’s subordinate status; while religion has been used to
sanction these practices.
• NU has arranged the activities of Leadership capacity-building of
grassroots women’s group leaders, enhancing effective participation of
women leaders in the local development, Initiating women’s group
meetings to develop awareness of legal and human rights, extending the
provision of legal aid to women etc.
7. STRENGTHENING THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT
• To improve the local government, NU has developed an improved service
delivery system. NU assists in functioning of different committees of Union
Parishad. NU is also trying hard to Increasing role of female
representatives of UP. Necessary steps have been taken to insure and
increase people’s participation in local government.
• The following project is undertaken for this particular purpose
8. HUMAN RIGHTS AWARENESS
• To promote human right awareness NU have arranged training facilities for
the young peoples, established network between various groups of young
peoples, leader-ship building strategies and motivate youth’s participation
in national and international activities.
• Understanding the importance NU has arranged a project for this
purpose
9. URBAN INFORMATION SECTOR
• The main objectives of this activity are mobilization of urban poor groups
to make effective demands on public agencies, o build a coalition of
women-headed organizations, to raise the level of women workers’
income in the informal sector, rehabilitation of slum dwellers and
promotion of their housing rights etc.
• There is a project which is undertaken to facilitate these activities
10. RIGHTS TO INFORMATION
• People’s right to information is a key focus of NU’s advocacy efforts. With
the equal input of five other organizations, NU thus initiated CCRTI as a
means toward helping to ensure that legislation established to protect
people’s right to information is enacted and enforced.
• As this is a very important activity the following project has been
undertaken
11. ADVOCACY, RESEARCH AND
COMMUNICATIONS
• Nagorik Uddyog contributes through participating as advocates in other
NGO’s, they also do necessary research for the development process and
communicate with GO-NGO’s for further implementation of laws and
policies.
12. Environment, Climate Change and Disaster
Management
• NU has been involved with the campaign of protecting environment;
create awareness on climate change issues as well as responding to the
disaster affected people. During various disasters that hit upon the
country, NU is among the first to help the distressed peoples.
14. RECOMMENDATION
Based on the contribution of NU and our own observation we can recommend
some crucial points that are needed to be considered by NU.
• Though operating in Bangladesh for a long time, they didn’t yet contributed in any
important or significant sector rather scattered activities. They should try to focus
on the major sectors as well. And extend their activities.
• The economic information’s, like total budget, total expense etc. aren’t clearly
viewed or described. NU should provide as much information’s as possible.
• Their annual report lacks much important financial information’s. Their audit
reports are also not up to standard. To prove their viability, they must provide the
necessary information’s in their annual reports and ensure proper audit reporting.
• We’ve also observed that majority of their projects are financed by the donor
agencies, and there is a lack of accountability. They also should check this matter.
• They are basically focusing on those activities that are normally left alone by the
popular large NGO’s. That is a very good sign for them and the nation. We
recommend that they carry on these activities.
15. CONCLUSION
• We’ve analyzed all the activities of the NGO Nagorik Uddyog and
found that they provide a wide range of activities and their
contribution the both the economic and social sector is very much
convincing.
• But, along with their activities we’ve also found some drawbacks of
them. Lack of information, accountability, very limited area of
operation these are the factors that are ruining their achievements.
If they can manage their negative sides, we can sure hope that
Nagorik Uddyog will be a true form of NGO and it can be the role
model for other NGO’s to follow.