Primary Healthcare: For all, for free

I’m being graciously hosted at a socialist compound called Gonoshasthaya Kendra, the People’s Public Health.  Amidst the chaos of the liberation war from Pakistan and the catastrophe of deadly cyclones in the early 70s, six ambitious men set up some tents on the side of the road about an hour North of Dhaka and began providing basic health services to anyone who needed it, for free.  Today, that intractable faith in humanity and equality has flourished into a 140-acre social compound which houses its own water-treatment center, a university training community health workers, and several vegetable cultivations among many others.  GK is taking local villagers, mainly women, and training them, certifiably, to return back to their local villages to serve their people.  GK believes Comprehensive Primary Health Care is a human right, and in that, they provide free services to almost 1 million people.

An afternoon of freedom was announced and I took the rare opportunity to invigorate my body with some exercise.  Jogging along a brick path built by some of the members alongside the compound’s natural lake in a dusky blue light at 5 AM gave me just what I needed.  The tropical trees towered over the path while colorful saris and tunics scurried their way home for tea time, always making sure to basfully giggle and say hello to the strange white girl.  One woman waited until after I passed to yell, “running… WHY?”  I couldn’t think of an appropriate response.

GK has its own pharmacy, producing several antibiotics and essential drugs.  Although free for most poor members, its about 15 Taka ($0.20US) for most prescriptions for outsiders.  An x-ray will run you 100 Taka, about $1.40US.  Everyone on the coupound participates in the gardening and cultivation of vegetables.  And most all of the paramedics in training and the teaching professors livin on the compound as well.  Roaming the halls of the university you find this quite similar to any institution in the US – the library is filled with procrastinators on facebook, the hallway is a social nightmare of flirting and fashion, the walls are plastered with lectures and events – although grades are posted too!  The difference is seen in the visual effects: these stained walls and noisy recylced fans represent moer of an idea of sustainable development to me than the perfectly manicured lawns and ostentatious Smart Boards of the University of Denver.

Microfinance in Action

They meet once a week, although in a community like this, meeting is commonplace.  This meeting has intention, beginning each time with a declaration of 17 oaths each of the women vow to keep in order for retention of their membership in this microfinance group.  Simple recitation of the oaths, let alone its individual connotations may scream ‘socialism!’ to bank members in the West; however, these women rise in confidence, in unison, “We will send our children to school.  We will adopt family planning practices and keep our family size small.  We will construct sanitary latrines in our households and only use them for defecation….”  I begin to realize, this is much more than a loan.

Leelee, a bright young woman no more than 30 shares her story: 23,000 Taka (~$300US) is her current loan; she pays back 600 Taka per week from the rice cultivation she is doing on the land she was able to lease with the loan.  Others use their loans to buy rickshaws for their husbands to drive or livestock to raise and sell off in Dhaka.  A sea of smiles and saris surrounds me with valiant tales to tell and progress to expose.  I watch with alacrity as the committee leader gathers the weekly payments in the center of the cirlce, counting bills into a pan.  School has just let out; all the children and husbands are there to observe the strange fair-skinned strangers.  Globalization has made this confluence of culture particularly interesting as many of the local men have cell phones – equipped of course with cameras – technology flashes both ways now.

As I sit, barefoot, cross-legged on this meager tweed mat in the beating sun amid 25 entrepreneurial, rural Bengali women, a pair of wrinkled, shy eyes lit up next to me.  Beginning with a universally-understood smile, glances and giggles were exchanged with the woman whom I came to know as Shulie.  Shulie had been in the BRAC microfinance group for 20 years now.  “Now, men and women, everything is equal.  Everything is better.”  I wonder if she would tell us otherwise – the BRAC supervisor sat five feet from me and administered all the translating.  Nonetheless, here she sat, on her own, representing her family as the receiver of loans and distributor of funds to her husband; a position highly unliklely 30 years ago.  When prompted to return any questions to the foreign audience sharing the meeting this morning, the women only responded, “There are so many more people to help.  Please help all the poor people in all the villages.”

At home in my Wanderlust

In all my travels, I have cheated my way, inching across the globe in short flights or overland bus rides; this adventure has afforded my my first jetlag experience, after a 16 hour flight with a 4 hour leg on each end and long layovers between, accounting for almost 2 full days of travel.  After chasing light for days, the sun finally rose over a blanket of clouds at 30,000 feet, Himalayan peaks giving their morning salutations in the distance as we flew into Dhaka.

Day 1 in the most densely-populated city in the world: not all that bad.  We’re in the diplomatic/university neighborhood so its not as crowded and the poverty hides itself.  Although, we did wander away from our hotel yesterday and found ourselves lost in the market amidst Sari’s and tunics, tuk-tuks and textiles… and lots of staring eyes.  The women here are strikingly beautiful, so I mostly stare back.  We happened upon a group of young men playing Cricket in a field of trash heaps and goats.  Arie and Eric made friends quite quickly after impressing the Bengali boys with their batting skills (although the bowling attempts weren’t quite so good), as us women sat alongside cheering, the Bengali boys agape beside us.  Our sunny, sporty afternoon with the locals was cut short by some overly cautious US EMbassy security guards worried we were taking pictures of the embassy building and demanding to see our cameras…

Our afternoon was a surprise visit with Chairperson Abed, the founder and director of the largest NGO in the world – BRAC.  An indigenously-led aid organization which started as an emergency relief organization in 1970 after the cyclones, flourishing into today’s  largest bank in the country, its own primary education center, a poultry-rearing business, and so much more.  The name BRAC adorns buildings and billboards all over the city; Abed adorns the room with his humble spirit and fervent belief that poor people have the innovation and the will to make their own good choices – resources just need to be made available.

An Indian dinner I couldn’t even appreciate amidst the onsetting jetlag and a cool ride home on the back of a bicylce rickshaw (threatening my life with every peddle in the middle of traffic even crazier than Cairo) led me to a dramatic collapse on my bed, here at the Asian Pacific Hotel at 7:30.  I awoke to the Muezzin’s call to prayer at 5 AM and find myself here, with a meager cup of Bengali coffee in a city waiting to be explored.

Smiles and saris, tunics and tuk-tuks, I am at home again in my wanderlust.

A new nook to cozy up in

My wanderlust for cultures has carried me to many corners of the world, only to continually fill an insatiable thirst for further adventures.  I get to do just that in nineteen days when the cohort will travel to Bangladesh, a particular corner I have yet to explore.  Its rapidly approaching.   And I have become all too aware of how quickly time flies as a busy graduate student (and how quickly you learn to appreciate weekends).

With local departments like International Development Enterprises out of Denver and global NGOs like BRAC and Grameen Bank, we get the opportunity to explore various strategies and approaches to development in a young nation, with one of the most dense populations, experiencing interesting advancements out of extreme poverty and inequality.  I’m curious…

In preparation, we’re reading the stories of the two most famous NGOs in Bangladesh, Grameen Bank, which started the largely replicated microfinance fad through the innovations of Mohammed Yunus, and BRAC, one of the largest NGOs in the world, winning the fight against poverty in all sectors and several countries.  I’m learning about Bangladesh’s  independence, the restless soul of its people, the failures of its government and outside forces to expel inequality, and its ongoing progression to prosperity in the future.  I’m curious…