1. Brahmonbazar Christian Health Project

Brahmonbazar Christian Health Project (BCHP) is a service oriented health works program. It has its main health centre at Brahmonbazar Union of KulauraUpazila, under Moulvibazar District. It started as a Primary health care Program in 1979, by the missionaries of Norwegian Santal Mission, with the name santal Mission Norwegian Board Health Project (SMNB Health Project). Gradually the project was converted to a curative health program, as per need of the rural people of Kulaura and other Upazilas of Moulvibazar District, in order to serve rural people inn their needs of curative health care. There is a large number of population of the Khasi tribe, and the marginal tea garden population, in KulauraUpazila and the surrounding region, whose access to available curative care is difficult for economic reason, as well as for difficult access to curative care available only in towns. These people, together with the general population far and around the project, is being benefited from the Project centre. From later part 2008, the project also started to run an out-reach centre at IsacherraKhasiPunji, a very remote and difficult to reach area, in Karmodha Union of KulauraUpazila, for providing primary level health care to the Khasi tribe and, others in that locality.

Activities:

The activities of the project is aimed mainly to maternal and child care providing most of the services in curative health works, as well as possible curative care to people who seek for it. The health centre remains open 8 hours on all working days for out-door patient treatment. Besides the health centrei kept open round the clock for in patient care. The centre has the provision for 35 beds for in-patient care. The centre provides common diagnostic services through a clinical laboratory, X-rays, E.C.G. and, Ultra-sound examinations. The centre also runs a primary health care center, and has vaccination centre. Doctors, nurses, technicians and paramedics are accommodated in the project compound so that they are available any time they need to be.

Activities	Results
No. of Out-patient served (Brahmonbazar + Isacherra)	9,671
No. of  In-patient served	1,543
No. of Normal Delivery	90
No. of Obstetric surgeries (Caesarian Section)	412
No. of other surgeries (Major + Minor)	570
No. of Lab tests done	34,086
No. of X-rays done	1,197
No. of Ultra-sound scanning	2,369
No. of  Vaccinations given	131
No of Poor patient Charity Given	1203 (5,13,085/-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

BCHP Ministry

In the past, about 32 years ago, during the time of inception of this health project, health care facilities were scarce in many or most rural localities in Bangladesh. At that time it was only the KulauraUpazila Health Complex from where health care services were available in the areas around BCHP. The tea garden population, a very low income group of people, and the Khasi tribe living in the remote and difficult to reach areas of Kulaura, Juri and BaralekhaUpazilas, had very little or no opportunity for access to primary level health care. Even the economic situation was very poor in rural population in general. Mortality and morbidity were high among the people of the areas around the health project, as in many other rural areas in Bangladesh.

Initially The Norwegian Santal Mission launched a village based primary health care program, covering the total population of two adjacent Unions. Brahmonbazar and Jaifornagar, of Kulaura Upazila. The program continued till 1994, reducing maternal and child mortality, and morbidity in general. As the Govt. primary health care works program gained momentum and intensified satisfactorily to cover the above two unions with preventive health care activities, the need of extending primary health care works by BCHP became minimal, and was stopped . But curative health care remained a want of the rural population of the area, and other places surrounding. In order to face this need of the people, near and far around the health project, the project took up more and more curative works. Curative activities were strengthened and the project was gradually developed into more or less a secondary level curative health centre. The project is now extending curative health services, with common diagnostic facilities, in-patient care in 35 beds, together with clinical care of out-patients. Activities are directed mainly to benefit mothers and children, through out-door and in-door obstetric care, and treatments of ailing children and women, and for others as well who seek for the services, in order to avert deaths among these vulnerable groups, as well as to serve people in distress due to health reasons.

Achievements:

Achievements are highlighted in the performance results. People have their choice to seek curative health care from BCHP and they prefer to get the services from BCHP. Patient’s visits BCHP health centre not only from KulauraUpazila, but also from three other surrounding Upazilas. During the year 2014, among the 1,801 in-patients treated and served, 1 persons died, and 1 in-patients were referred to higher centers for special and intensive care. 448 child bearing mothers got obstetric (child delivery) care by surgery. A good number of them were treated as emergency cases. A number of low birth weight babies’ were given necessary treatment and medical care for saving their lives, that could otherwise lose their lives, 2,182 children under-5 years of age were treated as in-patients, commonly for diarrhoeal diseases and pneumonias, which are the common cause of child mortality.

Risks:

The main risk of BCHP is its finance. It is a non-profit health care venture, being run on its own income, i.e. income from patient’s contributions as service charges. BCHP has no regular donor partner. A large number of poor patients needed their treatment costs to be subsidized. Some patients are given full charity as they did not have any means to pay.  BCHP has to find sources for external help, from time to time, specially to subsidies the capital expenses, such as, for procurement/replacement of expensive medical and hospital equipment; for extension and repair/renovation of houses, for procurement/replacement of vehicles etc. There is also a risk in keeping the local income steady and regular, as the local income depends upon patient inflow, which is not steady throughout the year, and there are seasonal downfalls. On the other hand BCHP had to keep the service charges from patients at a lower level, so that marginal and poor people get access to curative health care in their need.

Another risk is, the difficulty to find and retain technical/professional staff, such as doctors, nurses and medical technicians in the project, as the expectation of their own benefits are higher than what we are able to provide. BCHP has no opportunity in up-grading their skills according to the project’s needs. On the other hand, the rural situation of the project is not attractive for the living of the staff that is efficient to have their job in townships. Invariably we lose doctors, who are the most important personnel in a health care program.

Conclusion:

BCHP is serving all these years, extending curative health care services to the rural people in their needs. But it is not always encouraging for us when the project is run with financial risks and other hindrances like short of doctors and technical/professional staff, from time to time. We need regular partners for financial back up of the project, and its activities directed to serve people in need, i.e. the vulnerable groups, as well as the people in general.

 

2. Child Centered Integrated Community Development Project.

Project Background:

KOINONIA has been working to reduce the effects of poverty through ‘Child Centered Integrated Community Development Project’ (CCICD)  with Poorest of the poor, disadvantaged and deprived section of people(children, Adolescent, women and  Men) living in Mollarhat sub-district under Bagarhat district of Bangladesh. Mollarhat is one of the most poverty and uneducated sub-districts of the southern region of the country. KOINONIA has been working at four unions of this sub-district namely Atjury, Udaypur and Kodalia.

Socio-economic condition of Mollarhat sub-districts is high poverty (hard core poor -20%, poor-50% ) and low literacy rate (literacy rate is 31.6%). The common natural disasters of the targeted areas are flood; storm, cyclone, water logging   and salinity to which people especially poor are suffering from its impact. They are mostly affected by flood, salinity, and water-logging. During that time they have been suffering from various diseases like diarrhea, dysentery, cold fever, pneumonia, skin diseases etc; water crisis, crop destroyed, income decreases are the common features of impact. Many people migrate for searching alternative income source. Women and children are mostly victimized. Most of them don’t know any information about public service from the concerned sector of government. Participants of FGD gave their opinion about the measures of reducing loss due to disaster. Most of them said that awareness rising on disaster and climate change issue would be effective measure. They also shared that if people have skilled training on income generating activities they can easily cope up with the adverse situation.

Koinonia and Läkarmissionen have a precious and valuable bonding for more than 10 years.  Läkarmissionen has helped Koinonia in different sector such as education sector, emergency support to vulnerable people who were affected by natural disaster. In addition, it has been supporting our Rural Health Worker Training Program since 2006 and that particular project is running successfully thus; we are tied in bondage for years. Läkarmissionen has always helped Koinonia on every aspect whenever there is a need and provided every possible facility, support to implement Koinonia’s every project properly and successfully.

KOINONIA seeks to foster good relationships with the Local Government and Non-Government Organizations. Co-ordination and co-operation between the Government and NGOs is very important in the development fields. KOINONIA is thankful to the respective officials of NGO Affairs Bureau, Deputy Commissioner of Bagerhat and the UNO of MollahatUpozila along with other government officials, all local government authorities for their enormous cooperation and assistance to achieve our targets.

Koinonia has played an active role in terms of communicating with other non-governmental and governmental organization. On each field activities such as trainings, seminars, workshop, hardware distribution etc,Koinonia’s field staff has invited Senior Officers, UNO (Sub-district Officer) from government and non government as well. They have visited our field and attended many programs. In addition, our staff has also attended social seminars/workers which were conducted by local government. Koinonia’s staff also collects different issue based materials from other non-government organizations and also invites them as resource person in trainings. In addition, KOINONIA is an active member of ‘National Girls’ Child Forum’, and “HIV network “which is a government’s recommended forum and it has over 100 members. KOINONIA has attended rallies, round table meeting through this forum. Thus KOINONIA has as positive impact in terms of networking.

Project Goals:

The activities of Koinonia include the community people who are vulnerable and disadvantageous. Koinonia has always tried to broad its area to cover as much as vulnerable people it can.  We organize trainings on different issues such as gender, HIV, disaster risk, health, sanitation. All those issues are focused to raise awareness among the civil society, community people. As Koinonia has strong networking with other government and non-government organization thus it was feasible for us to build goodwill in civil society. Still we are attending different seminars/ workshops organized by other organization, meetings to make a positive change among civil society.

The Project has enrolled 480 students at the year starting of School calendar 2015 and completed with 475 students. 100% children passed and promoted innew classes. 100% students are regular in their classes.There are 5 students drop out due to Parents migration, take admission in maddrasa. 107 Students have graduated from KOINONIA-CCICDP preprimary school. They are preparing to take admission in near primary school. Our Staff and SMC member are helping students and their guardian to take admission in class three.During the last six month the project has provided everyday nutritious food for 480 students every Tuesday guardians provide hotchpotch for their children (students). 16 trained teachers have provided class lesson with 480 students in 8 schools. The students have successfully completed their course.Project has arranged health check up of 480 students, and suggestion to their guardians to take care of children according to doctors advised and provide medicine if it necessary. 100% children participated and enjoyed. During the reporting period the project has formed and continued capacity building activities with 60 self-help groups with 1164 villagers. 1164 group members are saving money regularly on weekly basis.The Project Staff have shared about Village Development Committee (VDC), and self-help groups are taking preparation to form VDC. This year project has trained 110 SHG leaders on Leadership and Management.This year project has trained 57 SHG leaders on ‘Accounting & Record Keeping’. 60 active groups are depositing savings regularly and meeting weekly basis and planning for their own development. During the reporting period project Staff has provided regularly motivation with 1164 group members to implement income generation activities and small business as well as self-employment. The women are encouraged to invest in their own activities such as small businesses, vegetable gardening and raising livestock.40.38% started IGA or business to use their skills and making additional income.Financial development is one of the fundamental factors for sustainable development. KONONIA promotes saving’s based fund and a self - managed system. Groups are involved in Savings and Income Generation in which members establish a pattern of regular savings to the group investment fund. This is often one of the motivating factors in the formation of groups particularly as the benefits of savings are seen in the community. Trained adolescent are aware on their physical change and management of their reproductive health.The project has four adolescent groups consisting 100 adolescent members. They conduct meeting in every quarter on reproductive health and other different health related issues. Besides that project has provided seminar, workshop, and different educational and motivational session and for our group members:

• Including group member a total 3317 community people have received lesson on HIV/AIDS.
• Seminar on common diseases and its prevention - 60 members
• Session on Early marriage - 3862 members
• Session on Birth Registration - 2186 members

The Project has celebrated post religious programs with 476 participants, Victory and Independence Day at 8 schools with 480 students, 16 teachers and parents. The focus people understand the consequences of the cross-cutting issues and act to stop domestic violence.

KOINONIA ensure that the program and project monitoring and carried out on all components and Projects. KOINONIA has Monthly Information System (MIS) for all projects where every activity is mentioned with quantitative values.  A Monthly and quarterly Management Information System (MIS) report is prepared on the basis of the data collected monthly by the Staff.  From that MIS it is easy to know how much progress has been achieved and how much is left to achieve. CCICDP’s staff completes this MIS report every month to measure project’s achievement. On the other hand our staff prepared a monthly narrative report as well so that any activity that need to explain or hasn’t completed it could write down on that narrative report. Thus through those two reports we could determine the project accomplishment. Through monitoring and follow up we could have a visual view such as the positive change of their life style, behavioural, educational etc. of the project.

Our target in five years is to reach 600 children, 1,200 adult, 250 adolescent, 970 community leaders and local government authority, 415 family members of SHG members. Till now we have reached almost 96% of those beneficiaries as our 60 groups are already formed, we have provided different skill development and educational trainings, we have adolescent groups, our eight schools which consist of 480 students and those schools are running successfully, we have conducted various type of seminar on health, ethical or moral values for government officials. CCICDP is in a proper notion of implementation. These are only our direct beneficiaries but through them we have reached to their family members which cover our indirect beneficiaries’ quota.

Our targeted beneficiaries almost cover the people of all aspects of society. But there are another group of people who get affected through our program and that is local religious leaders and elite persons, local govt. official and others community. As we have invited them in our different seminars, workshop and sometimes we have provided hardware to community people through those persons as community people obey them as mentor. Thus CCICDP has a positive impact on that particular group as well.

Monitoring and evaluation:

The Executive Director is overall responsible to achieve the project goal while he will be supported by the Programs Manager, Program Officer, Finance Coordinator, Field Manager and other personnel of the organization. The Field Trainer, Field Accountant, Field Organizers and Teachers will report to the Field Manager. He will check and review the report and submit to Program officer Programs Manager and the Programs Manager will report to the Program Manager and Program Manager will report to the Executive Director with his recommendations/comments for future improvement, revision and corrections. The Executive Director will review the report and back to the Programs Manager for implementation. The Executive Director will provide report back to the donor partners, government and other respective authorities for their comments, suggestions/directions for further improvement of the project. Organization’s Monitoring & Evaluation Manager will visit the program quarterly along with the Executive Director to identify the improvement and progress. He/she will also identify the areas where the project should put more efforts to make the program a successful one. Mean while organization’s Human Resource Manager will try to identify staff capacity using appropriate tools and he/she will arrange necessary trainings to increase staff capacity.

At the end of 3rd year an Internal Evaluation will be done by KOINONIA. A 4 member’s team will form under the leadership of a Consultant. The team will consist with Program Manager, Monitoring &Evaluation Officer and one from community. At the end of the 5th year consult with donor partner assigned External Evaluation team will do the External Evaluation of the project. Future project will be designed based on their comments and recommendations.     

Conclusion:

As we have shared earlier that we will form Village Development Committee (VDC) in next phase. VDC will help the SHG group to sustain in future through completing the registration from the government. As soon as each and every group will be registered then they can directly communicate with government and through that relationship they can sustain their groups in long run even without the outside fund. Moreover, VDC will act as a mentor to SHG groups after we handover the responsibilities to them

3. Food Security through Poverty Reduction in Rangpur and Gaibandha, Bangladesh

 

Foreseen activities:

• Formation of self-help groups
• Training the self-help groups in account management and economic principles; supplying templates for documenting the expenses
• Training in vegetable growing and composting followed by supply of seeds and the creation of a revolving fund for purchasing agricultural tools and fertilizer.
• Creating a seed bank
• Distributing the tree seedlings to the target group; planting of the seedling by the target group
• Cash-for-work: digging ponds and renovating the road
• Training courses for animal, fish and poultry farming, then provision of a fund for the purchase of animals/fish for breeding and feedstuffs
• Vaccination of the breeding animals
• Provision of a fund for granting loans for income-generating measures
• Training women in tailoring, then provision of the financial means for the purchase of sewing machines and fabrics
• Training the self-help groups in acquiring leadership skills
• Training 10 volunteers who are to support the self-help groups in their activities
• Teaching 240 women to write and read
• Training on the subject of human and social rights
• Training for strengthening the role of women
• Training for members of the self-help groups in disaster prevention
• Training and motivation for activation of the 20 UDMC’s Follow-up.
• Training volunteers who are to support the self-help groups in disaster prevention
• Raising awareness for disaster management and prevention as well as for hygiene and rights within the community

 

 

People depend on jobs offered by rich farmers and on loans obtained from them. Many of the people thus get caught in a debt trap. 90 % of the target group is affected by food insecurity throughout the year.Self-help groups and other local structures are not yet available in the community. Women have almost no say in the family.

So far, the target group has no choice but to take out loans with high interest rates.

The project participants have no account.

Around two thirds of the poor population has less than three meals a day. Around 90 % of the families are affected by food insecurity throughout the year.

Most poor people suffer from undernourishment or malnutrition. Almost two thirds of the food of the people in the project region consists of rice, supplemented by some vegetables and legumes. Only a little bit of fish is available.

Although the social solidarity among neighbors is strong, most people do not have enough financial means to support each other.

No social safeguards are available so far for sharing the seeds.

During famine periods, people often migrate to cities, where there live under precarious conditions. Mainly women, children and old people are often left behind on their own.There are disaster committees but these have only little knowledge and are not able to react adequately to disasters.

20 % of the target group breeds animals, poultry or fish.

Most people of the target group have less than 150 BDT per day at their disposal.

 

 

4. KOINONIA-Integrated Approach for Community Development (KIACD) Program

 

Social Issue:

Dinajpur district, the working area of KIACD is very cold in winter comparing to the other parts of the country. Like other year this year also people suffered from intense cold. The involvement of the communities’ in different KIACD working areas is increasing with the program. They are gradually trying to undertake economical, social and health care development activities in their families and in the communities.

 

Socio-economic situation:

90% of the group members have regularly attended the group and made their regular savings and capital is increased. 255 families have increased their earning by using their IGA skill they had gained through training e.g. goat rearing, poultry rearing, grocery shop, handicraft and compost making and by using their revolving fund.

• 76 members have earned in a range between 1500-3000 taka from goat rearing and family is enjoying this benefit.
• 80 members have earned around 600-1200 taka by poultry rearing and developing economic status.
• 55 members earn between 80-220 taka by venturing grocery shop and thus they have been earning their living and developing their economic status.
• Most of families were involving in kitchen gardening e.g. sweet gourd, beans, pumpkin, papaya, spinach, radish. They used it for family nutrition and earned a little amount of money by selling excess production.
• 8 persons earned taka 1200-1800 per month by tailoring. During festival time they earned more than is the mentioned
• A member of a group earned taka 800-1000 per month by making pouch and selling to several dealers and shops.
• 35 members are using compost fertilizer for cultivation and also 12 of them earned taka 2000-2400 by selling the compost fertilizer to others.

 

Political situation:

In the 1st, 2nd and 3rd quarter the political situation was unstable. There was strike, blockade and violence that created panic among the people. We faced difficult to go to office and travel back to home. Even sometimes we could not go project field for routine monitoring. Farmers, dealers and vendors also could not supply their grain or goods and due to this price of daily essentials went up.

 

Environmental situation:

As Dinajpur district is in the northern side of Bangladesh there was very cool wave in the winter season. The temperature was 7-8 degree Celsius in the working area some times. This year temperature went down below 7 degree Celsius sometimes. The sun can hardly be seen during this time because of extreme fog. The community suffered by cold wave. The people of this area are habituated with this temperature rise and fall situation, but sometimes they got sick. This year there was regular weekly meeting in the primary groups but sometimes member came lately and sometime they couldn’t attend the meeting due to intense fog during winter and during harvesting season. The autumn  is the main harvesting season of the year, so they remain busy with harvesting paddy. But they were motivated to attend the meeting and deposit their regular savings.

 

Education program:

• 196 boys and 189 girls out of total 385 students of the group member families continued their schooling in 8 KIACD preprimary schools till to March, 2015 as the schools were closed due to fund unavailability. The children were very enthusiastic to come to school because of the teaching methodology followed in the schools. They are shocked as the schools are closed due to unavailability of funding from April this year.
• 320 adult learners have expressed their happiness over the functional education program and they believe that functional education program has brought  a new dimension  in life now able to read and write . But the course of Functional Education of this year was suspended at the end of March, 2015 due to lack of available fund.

 

Health situation:

107 families have made 10 sanitation para (small community) in six villages in the KIACD working area by installing sanitary latrines and keeping healthy environment. They installed the sanitary latrines by taking loan from their revolving fund of the group.

We are committed and accountable to all of our stakeholders of this project. During the reporting period through our different activities we have tried to seek out the feedbacks from the project participants, beneficiaries and different stakeholders. The people of working areas are influenced by the KIACD group IGA activities and sanitation achievement.

Nizpara Union Chairman requested KIACD project to increase the working area (village) for giving coverage to other villages of their union.  The govt. Officials are happy to see the achievement of compost making and other IGA functions of group members.

We see a good relationship between the Worker (volunteer) & Union Committee (UC) members and they are working jointly to develop their capacity and to improve their livelihood though the volunteers are released from the project due to fund crisis. There is a huge possibility for groups & UC to work alongside with local government and other NGOs to collect information and to access available resources for their well being.

15 project staff, 20 volunteers, 8 teachers have been providing massages to community people on advocacy to get their rights and caring on their healthy life for their well being and they have been continuously assisting all beneficiaries for enhancing their skill to enlighten their income source. Church leaders and members have been encouraging the project team for continuing their job in spirit and advising to follow the strategy of the project activities for the betterment of their livelihood. The Agriculture Officer has facilitated the training on friendly agriculture development to the group members to practice it in their area and get benefits out of it. A staff of satellite clinic of government office assisted in providing lesson on family planning to the group member through court yard meeting. The Local government provided 320 kg rice for 32 members of the group at viel union, 510 kg rice for 51 members at chehelgaji union, 300 kg rice for 30 members and 390 kg for 30 members through Union Committee. One woman with disability gained registration card from Viel Local Government (LG) Council. The LG have provided her 900 taka per quarter as a government support. The government officials provided training as a resource on Agriculture training and safe motherhood training to group members. The NGO individuals have also assisted to provide training on safe motherhood, Functional Education course and leadership development. The different NGOs arranged different Day observation with collaboration of other GOs, NGOs and like-minded institution.Local elite and community leaders have encouraged and motivated the community people regarding the initiatives of KIACD activities through attending in Day observation, culture and sports program of pre-school, group activities and sometimes by solving the family problem. Journalist plays their role by publishing the output of the project in the newspaper and by 360 degree cooperation. Adolescent girls and boys share on hygiene, sanitation and cleanliness issues with their peers and neighbors.

 

Management, Monitoring and learning:

The program is supervised directly by the Program Manager with the support of Program Officer from Dhaka office while Field Manager is overall responsible person for all the field activities at the field office. Field Manager is directly reporting to the Program Manager through Program Officer for day to day activities and also to the Accounts Officer for the field accounts related issues. The project staring was quite good at the beginning of this year but after certain period the physical monitoring could not be done thoroughly due to fund constraints and for discontinuation of the staffs.

There were staff meetings in the project office in every month but in the ending of 2nd quarter the Program Manager and Program Officer could not attend it due to unavailability of fund. But the Project Management Team (PMT) meeting was conducted in every month. They monitored and revised all the plan and activities in accordance to budget. All staffs submitted their monthly work plan and report to their line authority. Field staffs were monitoring their activities day to day through their line management. As the Project Accountant resigned from his position after 1st quarter, the assigned staff of the project was fully responsible for all financial transaction, accounts keeping and documents maintaining with the supervision and help of Program Manager and head office based Accounts Officer. We have planned that the checklist and CCA format will be revised as the groups were divided in smaller size. Once the fund gets available, we will organize a workshop to revise all necessary formats, such as checklist, CCA, and group Audit. Due to pending FD-6 approval and fund unavailability, we had to revise our plan for first six months of the year and following this plan we had to submit revised fund requisition. During 2nd quarter, as we were passing through an interim period, we could not implement any program that requires money, but the group activities were continued with their own schedule. For that we have done our regular monitoring and supervising on group activities. The mid-term internal evaluation was not organized during said time due to unavailability of fund.

Conclusion:

Since the external evaluation was not conducted in due time that’s why we could not get any feedback or recommendations to go to next phase. In the field area the group activities are going smoothly and UC members are guiding and co-operating the groups with their good performance. Considering their performance the primary group and Union Committee could plan for their next stage activities according to the exit plan.

We have successfully completed 2nd year for pre-school program. The community people are motivated to send their children to the school and encouraged to give nutrition food for their children. The community people are well motivated through this program. We have strongly found that they have high demand for this program. So we would like to strongly recommend for continuing the pre-school program for enhancing their growing up mentality on literacy. 

Considering sustainable empowerment in the community we recommend to sustain the Union Committee instead of CBO/Group in the community to have impact monitoring.

 

5. Mobilizing Church in Community Earthquake Preparedness Program (MCCEPP)

Last year we have worked with 6 wards of Mirpur area. We share our all activities with church leaders & they allow us to work through their churches. They formed Church Earthquake Preparedness Management Committee (CEPMC) & Church Earthquake Preparedness Volunteers Group (CEPVG). KOINONIA motivated & trained the CEPMC & CEPVG, and then the trained peoples are moving to the community to aware about earthquake preparedness. In this year we also worked with the same wards and CEPMC and CEPVG.During the reporting period (January 01 to June 30, 2015) the overall situations are described below:

Socio-Economic Situation: Bangladesh has an average population density of over 1,000 people per sq. Km area. Dhaka city has the largest agglomeration of urban population with one third of total urban population of the country. If earthquake of M 6.5 or above happen in Dhaka city, then the following expected damages will be occurred:

Facilities	Total	moderate damage	complete             damage	with functionality
Hospitals	600	197	00--1-0	-280
Schools	2,737	857	90	1241
Police stations	62	21	0	23
Fire stations	10	4	0	5

                        Source: Dr. A.S.M. Maksud Kamal (Urban Risk Reduction Specialist, CDMP)

Dhaka got the shake of earthquake in this year also but luckily had a little damage occurred for those earthquakes. On 25^th April 2015, the South Asian Country Nepal faced an immense 7.8 magnitudes earthquake and more than 9000 people were killed and 23000 were injured. But this earthquake not only occurred in Nepal, but also spread out all South Asian neighbouring country like Bangladesh. In Bangladesh we feel some of the shake of that earthquake. In Bangladesh, 4 people died because of that earthquake shock. But we are still in huge risk of earthquake. And aftershocks in Nepal, also hit in Bangladesh within few days, which made the people of Bangladesh scared.  

Government of Bangladesh has started different awareness raising and earthquake mitigation program in the density populated mega cities like Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, and Sylhet etc. Under this program, the local government will organize local earthquake preparedness committee headed by the local elected ward commissioners. The committee will form volunteers group, who will organize and take part in different awareness raising campaign, and will help the fire service in rescue operation if earthquake happens. Both management committee members and volunteers will be trained for that. The plan is good but it’s a big challenge for the government to cover this enormous population living in the mega cities like Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet.

Stakeholder Accountability:

KOINONIA kept a continuous good relation with church and communities’ thorough organizing meeting, discussion and liaison with the Church and community leaders. They are involved in planning activities in their community. KOINONIA is very careful in selecting potential and acceptable community volunteers by the Church and community leaders. KOINONIA already has good relation with Department of Disaster Management (DDM), Comprehensive Disaster Management Program (CDMP) and Fire Service and Civil Defense Department. To ensure and continue help from concerned Govt. departments, a MOU signed up at the beginning of the project. We are also trying to convince the garment industry authority to allow their staff to attend in the orientation with the help of the coordinating authority of garments industries in Bangladesh. We have different awareness activities with school students and teachers.  We will organize school mock drill to get practical knowledge about earthquake preparedness. Mason, Developers & Engineer’s will get idea about building codes. All of the local school authority, Community leaders, Church leaders & Engineers are very cooperative with us.

We are committed and accountable to all of our stakeholders of this project, in the project proposal we have described about all the stakeholders and what is their roles and responsibilities. During the reporting period through our different awareness activities we have tried to seek out the feedbacks from the project participants, beneficiaries and different stakeholders. 

We are receiving feedbacks from different levels and trying to respond according to our different activity through project. These helped us to build a very good relationship between KOINONIA and the Government officials in our project area.  We have also selected the vulnerable people as the project’s beneficiary to make prepare them about earthquake.

Conclusion:

This year was our second face of the project. Our Earthquake Preparedness Management Committee (EPMC) members and Earthquake Preparedness Volunteers Group (EPVG) members are well known about earthquake preparedness & they have tried to aware the community peoples. They have visited to the community & shared about earthquake preparedness. They also took part with different social work for community development. They are motivated & inspired to take part with any emergency responsibility.

Now they have learned about:

• Church Mobilization & Integral Mission- Our Church leaders have learned about integral mission & how they can mobilize the church activity to community. So they are motivated to work together & aware the community about Earthquake Preparedness.
• Earthquake Preparedness- Most of the EPMC & EPVG members has learned about earthquake preparedness. They attended different trainings and by the different awareness publications they are well known about preparation before earthquake, what need to be done during earthquake time & first response after earthquake. They also share the information among family members during earthquake they have to cover themselves on safe place and take shelter under pillar, wooden table or bed. Also need to cover their head with pillow, books or hands for more safety.
• Search & Rescue- For any emergency situation or after disaster, we need to response for search & rescue operation. Church Earthquake Preparedness Volunteers learnt about INSARAG (International Search and Rescue Advisory Group) marking system to find out the location of any live victim. After marking the victims they also learned the method of rescue operation & save the victims life.
• Use of Rescue Tools, equipment’s and executrices- Through different trainings, EPVG members are well-know about what needed to done during emergency & ready to first response. Through the trainings from Fire Service & Civil Defense they had learnt about safety rules, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), use of search & rescue tools, equipment and executrices. Many of our EPVG members have practical experience to use of different tools &equipment. 
• First Aid- Through the training programs the EPVG members are well known about emergency first aid. They are capable to provide any first aid service to any kind of wounded victims. Also they can take care of family members for any sickness or accident. Moreover, they are trained for community preparedness.
• Firefighting& evacuation- The Volunteers are well known about how to perform firefighting& evacuate on situation. EPVG members also took part for firefighting with Fire Service staffs in community.
• Voluntarism- from MCCEPP, Church Members & Volunteers have learned about voluntarism and about responsibility of volunteers. Now they are more active about any Voluntarism work on Church & community.

We have implemented this project by the good cooperation of 10 local Churches of Mirpur area. In past previous years, Churches worked with their own members but now the situation has changed. They are working with others Churches and the local community. It’s a positive change on their mentality to work together for some good practice. They are applying the techniques with love, morality, loyalty and everything with solidarity to work for community awareness. They know earthquake vulnerability is a major issue for all of them. To create awareness among community they are trying to give effort from their sides. So it will be a great achievement of this program, that a huge number of community peoples are now aware about earthquake preparedness. It’s our belief that, we have planted the seed of Church mobilization among the Church people as they have started for thinking and providing service for the surrounding communities.

All the program activates of MCCEPP is directly running through the local Church Pastors, leaders & members. Most of the volunteers & management committee members are directly involve with Church activities. Most of our activity goes with prayer, worship & sharing from Bible with the participation by Church leaders. Through different activity Church members become very active with regular Church activities.

Different activates of MCCEPP is making the way for the Church to reach the community nonbelievers to share the gospel of salvation. Church members are going to community with awareness information related posters, leaflets & stickers. Moreover, they are getting opportunity to share to communities about Jesus is the only way of Salvation. Church Pastors and leaders are very much encouraged & motivated as they are getting a good opportunity to share about Jesus love to the community peoples very easily.

Our Earthquake Preparedness Management Committee members & Earthquake Preparedness Volunteers believe that as a Christian it is our great responsibility to love our neighbor and to serve them. To show the love to neighbor, they visit to them & try to share them about earthquake preparedness information. For this awareness program our volunteers can go to community & making good friendly relation with local youths. So for the activities of MCCEPPvolunteers & management committee members, rest of youth & Church members are also motivated to take part with earthquake awareness & Church activities.