Bandhan

Bandhan works towards upliftment of marginalised communities with a special focus on poverty alleviation and women empowerment. The organisation has u Read morendertaken a few initiatives in the core areas of education, health, livelihood promotion, enterprise development and women empowerment. Its first program is Targeting The Hard Core Poor which involves tracking the poor communities and identifying the women belonging to these communities through Participatory Rural Appraisal. Thereafter, the organisation helps to identify an enterprise that can train, engage and build skills and capacity for these women. The second initiative includes the Bandhan Academy which is chain of formal primary schools under the Bandhan Education Program. The organisation has also set up non-formal schools with an aim to complement government initiatives to ensure a hundred percent attendance of the non-enrolled students to reduce the dependency on private tutors. The third initiative is the Bandhan Health program which aims to support the most socially and economically deprived areas of West Bengal. The program aims to make health services more accessible to the poor while reducing the expenditure of the same. It also aims to create awareness regarding various health conditions and diseases among the marginalised communities. Further, the organisation also selects health volunteers which are provided with technical medical training to help improve the conditions in their respective villages. Further the health volunteers help to organise and conduct various workshops and camps in collaboration with government in their respective villages. Additionally, with an aim to counter the problem of malnutrition, the organisation distributes seeds of seasonal vegetables. In terms of water and sanitation practices, the organisation has collaborated with Water.org to help provide safe and clean drinking water to the marginalised communities. The fourth initiative is Employing The Unemployed which aims to integrate skill development as a tool to fulfill the unemployment gap. The program works to identify unemployed youth and based on their capability provides skill training to them to help them explore relevant employment opportunities. For achieving its objective the organisation has set up Bandhan Learning Centres which provide vocational training and skill development classes to the youth. The fifth Initiative is the Bandhan Renewable energy program which aims to provide sustainable low cost electricity to deprived and remote areas. The program distributes and encourages the use of solar lanterns and lamps. In addition to this, the organisation in collaboration with Arc Finance USA has launched a solar program in West Bengal. The sixth initiative is Enterprise Development and Financial Literacy with United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The project aims to provide financial literacy, training in enterprise management and to ensure optimal utilisation of micro-credit among the beneficiaries.