Contents

Foreword
The Good Earth, as an organization
Project operation area
New projects
Continuation of ongoing projects
Organogram
Receipts and Expenditure Statement
Income and Expenditure Statement
Balance Sheet

Our effort in bringing effective change in the quality of life in our selected areas of work and people has continued for the sixth consecutive year. It was an eventful year for both the Good Earth as well as for the country. And in the midst of all these changes we have strived hard to fulfill our obligations. One of the most significant events was our attending the Micro credit Summit in Canada. It was a great learning opportunity to witness the global leaders of the Micro-credit Community at work in Halifax.

This year we gained significantly in our work with micro-credit, disability, hazardous child laborer’s education and also in the disaster management area.

Our regularly supported pre-primary schools in Chandpur, Comilla and Sirajganj districts are gradually shaping into ‘model projects’ for promoting child nutrition and rights issues also. Good Earth’s women’s rights and women’s empowerment programs are becoming highly popular. One of our special attention areas is taking place in the Char and Haor areas among the most marginal people.

Many philanthropists and individual donors have continued to surprise us with their generosity and kindness. We have received genuine advice and wise counseling from many people, which made going easier when it seemed challenges so overwhelming. The silent prayers of many kept us going strong. Our team strived relentlessly and learned many lessons which will make our hurdles easier to overcome in the coming years.
                   
                        
Md. Rafiqul Islam
Executive Director

The Good Earth: Who We Are?

We are an NGO working for social change and poverty alleviation in Bangladesh. We teach self-reliance and we stress on Human Rights as the basic tools necessary to bring changes in the lives of the poor.

The Good Earth believes that real change can occur only when the community is involved development must be bottom up. Trickle down policies are not sustainable; both government and community need to be involved in a holistic framework. This requires effective private public partnerships in development—dynamic, evolving and participatory. To this end, TGE is involved in creating bridges and developing partnership between government and non-government organizations to promote the common objective.

Vision

To raise the poor and the deprived from poverty and to empower them to live meaningfully in a just, enlightened and healthy environment

Mission

To give meaning and purpose to the lives of the poor especially of those living marginally. Our method is capacity building and engendering human rights; our commitment – promoting sustainability and participatory development.

Values:

1. Concern for people, especially the poor
2. Human dignity
3. Belief in Human Capacity
4. Gender Equity
5. Creativity and Innovation
6. Participation
7. Accountability
8. Cost consciousness
9. Teamwork
10. Sharing information
11. Transparency

Legal Status

Management:
The Good Earth has a general body comprising of educationists, researchers, intellectuals, committed social workers, philanthropists and retired government officials having long experience in their respective fields. The governing body (Executive Committee), headed by a Chairman, comprises of 7 (seven) members, and is responsible for overall organization and management of programs. The General Secretary is assisted by a team of committed and experienced staff to ensure that our aims are achieved. The Good Earth also has a panel of renowned   persons as Advisors to provide guidance on different issues.

Target Groups:                 
 
Disadvantaged women, landless and marginal farmers, vulnerable children and orphans, persons with disability, rickshaw pullers, people living at risk in Char, Haor and river erosion areas and the urban slum dwellers.

Project Areas: 

The Good Earth’s project areas at present cover the Upazilas of Chandpur, Comilla and Sirajganj districts and the slum areas of Dhaka city. Sirajganj is one of the least developed areas in Bangladesh and also seriously affected by seasonal flood. A combination of river erosion and flooding result in further homelessness and acute poverty. Targeted people of the project areas live below the subsistence level. They are socially powerless and deprived of socio-economic and legal and human rights.

Project Activities in 2006-07

TGE has continued its core project activities for the sixth year along the following areas:

1. Water & Sanitation
2. Persons with Disabilities
3. Micro Credit Operation
4. Skills Development Training
5. Pre-Primary Schooling
6. Free Friday Clinic
7. Research & Publication

Besides, our NGO initiated two separate projects this year one in the Child Labor Mitigation Area and the other in Disaster Risk Reduction.

New Projects:

Eradication of Hazardous Child Labor
The project is implemented with the financial and technical support from the Ministry of Labor & Employment (MOLE) within the Mirpur and Pallabi areas of the Dhaka city. The project duration is November 2006-November 2008. It will support the withdrawal of child labor from hazardous works. It’s is based on the ILO convention 182 for elimination of the worst forms of child labor.

Goal of the project:
The goal of the project is to support the systematic elimination of child labor from hazardous works in a certain given area in the Dhaka Metropolitan City (DMC).

Target Beneficiaries:
To provide Non-formal Education (NFE) and Skills Development Training (SDT) to 300 child laborers and micro-credit to their parents.

Project Activities: The following activities are going on under the project:

1. Identification of children and their parents through an extensive field work and select 300 working children; both girls and boys  from different hazardous working places.
2. Organizing 10 Multipurpose Centers (MPCs) – to provide NFE & SDT.
3. Motivation and awareness building including:
1. Door to door visit
2. Interpersonal Communication
3. Focus Group Discussion with the parents
4. Meeting, workshop and seminars
5. Development and distribution of public awareness materials
6. Rally
7. Day observance

1. Impart NFE to the child labor: Selected working children from hazardous works are being given books and study materials free of cost. One teacher teaches 30 children in a center.
2. Impart SDT- After completing eighteen months long NFE course, the children will receive Skills development training on different trades suiting their individual aptitude and interest.
3. Providing Medical Services
4. Providing Micro-credit- after completing NFE & SDT only selected parents of the children will receive micro-credit. The credit will help them to shake off their dependence on their children’s income. Rest of the parents will be given credit gradually from revolving fund.

Achievements:

• The target community has become aware and motivated about the necessity of child education
• The guardians and the employers of the selected children are encouraged to withdraw their children from hazardous works and finally 300 children are out of hazardous work.
• 300 children are enrolled in schools.

Students in hazardous work reading in NFE School 

Disaster Management

Local Disaster Risk Reduction Action Plans:
The Local Disaster Risk Reduction Action Plan project is being implemented with support from the Comprehensive Disaster Management Program (CDMP) financed by UNDP, EC and DFID in collaboration with Government of Bangladesh in Belkuchi Upazila under Sirajganj district.  Belkuchi Upazila is situated in the Sirajganj District, on the edge of the Jumuna River. Around 62.8% people of this area live below the poverty line.  Many of the poor and ultra poor live in the low-lying Char areas. Not only are the people in this area are poor, they are also extremely vulnerable to the effects of natural disasters and the impact this has on their livelihood.

The project aims to support disaster management committees at the union level in the Belkuchi Upazila to develop and operationalise effective community-based risk reduction action plans based on the outcome of a comprehensive community risk assessment.

Project Objective:
To support Disaster Management Committees (DMCs) at the union level in the Belkuchi Upazila to mainstream Local Disaster Risk Reduction Action Plans (LDRRAP) within the its core functions in order to significantly reduce the vulnerability of the community from natural hazards.

Broad Objective of the Project:
To support the six unions and one Pourashova Disaster Management Committees in Belkuchi Upazila to develop and operationalise effective community-based risk reduction action plans based on the outcome of a comprehensive community risk assessment.

Strategies
To undertake a comprehensive risk assessment
To develop community-based Risk Reduction Actions Plans
To facilitate priority setting of action plans at a community level
To increase community awareness with regard to the concepts of risk reduction

Target Population:
The area of Belkuchi Upazila is 164.31 square kilometers. The population of the Upazila is 3, 35,000. The Upazila consists of six unions and one municipality. Since the Upazila is formed mostly of Char areas and the Upazila is inundated during the normal wet season and suffer severe erosion every year.

Major Activities completed:

Undertaking a comprehensive community risk assessment (CRA)
By June 2007 our project team has completed three CRA out of six and the rest will be completed by December. As advised by CDMP we are using some CRA tools to appraise different types information regarding disaster and its risks from the participants in CRA sessions. Participants basically comprise of the members from the Union Disaster Management Committees (UDMCs) and other community people; farmer, landless, people with disabilities, women and the aged. CRA is an approach through which comprehensive information can be appraised in a participatory manner.

Developing community-based Risk Reduction Actions Plans
By using CRA tools, the data appraised from the community are compiled to prepare community-based Risk Reduction Acton Plans by the project staff in consultation with the UDMC members. By the reported period three Action Plans have been prepared.

Facilitating priority setting of action plans at a community level
In this phase we undertook some implementation of prioritized activities as the Action Plans support. Here The Good Earth plays its role as a coordinator to interact with different Govt. departments to inform the prioritized problems and strategies so that they can initiate their actions. Besides this, from our project fund we are in the process of financing in some interventions. Such as-

Tree Plantation:
The Good Earth as CDMP partner has undertaken plantation of 6000 trees on the road sides and river banks to protect soil erosion.

Risk Reduction Awareness Campaign
Our project team is organizing a series of court yard meetings with community people to produce different ideas on reducing risks of lives & resources, environmental sanitation during flood or other disaster, maternity & child care, reducing sufferings of women, people with disabilities and old and else.  

Water & Sanitation during Flood
To assure supply of safe drinking water and use of sanitary latrines during flood we have set up 5 safe tube wells on high platform as well as 10 flood latrines across the flood-prone Upazila and by the December 2007 some other tube wells and latrines will be provided. 

Achievement:
The community within the Belkuchi Upazila is having a relevant and appropriate Local Disaster Risk Reduction Action Plan, and as a consequence becoming better prepared to initiate disaster preparedness systems and community managed mitigation measures. It is anticipated that after completion of the project, community members will be equipped with the skills to both undertake the community assessment tool and subsequently develop action plans in consultation with union DMCs. Further, using the risk management framework the roles and responsibilities of the community and DMCs will be better understood.

Response and Relief Activity:
During the last winter ultra poor comprising of widow, woman headed families and people with disabilities were supported with warm clothes, blankets and also cash money from the organization’s own fund to save them form the extreme cold.

Blanket distribution among the cold wave stricken  people at Sadar Upazila, Sirajganj

Continuation of Previous Projects
Mainstreaming of Persons with Disabilities
Disability has remained a marginal issue in the public and private policy arena. Good Earth project for the people with disabilities entitled “Inclusion of People with Disabilities in Mainstream Development” in Kachua Upazila under Chandpur district was in operation since 2005.

Project Objective
To ensure that in the Kachua Upazila, the quality of life for people with disabilities improves through their inclusion in mainstream development. The project aims to provide social, physical and economic support to people with disabilities (PWD) and their families.

Approach of the project
Community based rehabilitation (CBR) approach is a concept that was initiated more than twenty years ago in less developed countries as a comprehensive strategy for addressing the very specific issues of disability within broader development strategies. More than ninety countries worldwide are using the CBR concept with the aim of ensuring that all people with a disability have equal access to rehabilitation services and opportunities, including health, education and income, as do all other members of any society. The United Nations statement as to the aims of CBR include:

A recent review of CBR activities internationally has highlighted essential components for successful implementation including:

Baseline Survey Report:
A comprehensive survey was undertaken in the 17 villages of the Kachua Upazila in order to determine the number of people who have a disability, to better understand the types of disabilities and issues they face, and consider possible solutions. Significant findings from the survey include:

Issues identified by people with disabilities and their families included –

• Social discrimination and stigma attached to having a disability.
• Limited access to education.
• Economic impacts on the person with a disability and their whole family.
• Lack of access to any rehabilitation services.
• Limited opportunities for PWD to be included within the community.

Target population
The population was selected through the baseline survey as shown in the table:

Finance:
The Good Earth started implementation of the project with its own resources, community funding and philanthropists’ contributions. Later on we received finance from Jatyio Protibondhi Unnoyan Foundation under the Ministry of Social Welfare and NGO Foundation.

Action Plan:
The project is designed for implementation in three phases for three years November 20005 – October 2008.

Phase 1 involves one year process to initiate community awareness raising with key community stakeholders and finalize the pilot project.

Phase 2 involves a two years project that will include community awareness raising across the North and South Gohat Unions, and using a selected sample of PWD, pilot strategies to empower PWD, improve access to health and education services, and support income generating opportunities.

Phase 3 will be dependent on a positive outcome of the pilot project, and will involve a roll out of the project across the whole project area.

Inclusion of physical impaired children into primary schools:
Child Education and Development Project
Pre-primary schooling: Child Education & Development:

Fostering Income Generating Activities:
Identifying income generating activities as a major vehicle for poverty reduction, Good Earth has been endeavoring to Skills Development Training, Micro Credit and Business Development Support & Services for its client groups.

Skills Development Training Program
The Good Earth conducted a series of training programs for income or employment generation related activities for local people specially women in agriculture, fisheries, dairy, poultry, tree plantation, sewing & embroidery and cottage industry. All the year round the unskilled people of the communities receive training on different trades at our Training Centers. In the last two years job opportunities for 2000 rural women and unemployed young men were created in agriculture, livestock rearing, handicrafts and small trades. Further supports are also given with micro credit for production and market access related activities. We are also supporting local women for homestead gardening by providing variety of seeds and appropriate training. The training feature of the reported period (July 2006 – June 2007) is shown in the table:

Micro Credit program
Business Development Support & Services:
Production centered business is one of the basic principles and policy recommendations of the Grassroots Approach to Development. However our marginal communities lack access to market without intervention and exploitation from the third party. The Good Earth is providing a production centered business development service among its beneficiaries following  own model: including accounting knowledge, management and marketing; making linkage between poor producers and the buyers.  

  

Mr. Rodney Semotiuk, president & CEO, ATFCAN, Canada is exchanging views with the beneficiaries of Micro-Credit program 

Participation in Micro-credit Fair 2007:

The Good Earth participated in the Micro-credit Fair 2007, organized by PKSF at China-Bangladesh Friendship Conference Centre, Dhaka from March 12-16. Different products made by our credit recipients were put on for display and sales. The item incuded Comilla Khadi, Nokshi Kantha, Baby dress, Panjabi, Fotua, woman’s dress with block, boutique & embroidery.    

Participation in the Global Micro-credit Summit in Halifax
On of the most significant event for Good Earth this year was its participation at the ‘Global Micro credit Summit’ in Halifax, Canada. ATFCan sponsored the Good Earth’s Executive Director to the Summit from 12-16 November, 2006.The occasion allowed us to witness the Global leaders of Micro credit, expand our understanding and learn from their exchanges.

World Bank project on Capacity Building
Under the World Bank’s Small Grants Program, the Good Earth implemented a project on “Building capacities of individuals/groups and reducing the suffering of the marginalized people of Bangladesh” This small grant of USD $ 7000. was implemented between July 2005 to June 2006.

A total of 14 workshops/seminars were conducted on the following issues in the districts of Chandpur, Comilla and Sirajganj.

• Pure Drinking Water and Sanitation
• Family Planning and Nutrition
• HIV/AIDS Prevention Process
• Women Rights & Empowerment
• Child Rights and Development
• Economic Growth Through Skill Development
• Development of People with Disability
• Disaster Management
• Raising Livelihood Status
• Arsenic Prevention Process
• Environmental Development

Besides organizing the above seminars and workshops, The Good Earth published posters on Tree Plantation, Women’s Rights and Child Rights. Leaflets on HIV/AIDS, Safe Drinking Water were also distributed among the illiterate people of the project area.  

Achievements of the project:
The participant communities were motivated on environmental sanitation, environmental preservation, women & child rights, maternal health, family planning, income generation and disaster management issues. They became more conscious and also practioners of the knowledge. Other people in the area also benefited alongside the direct beneficiaries of the project.

Environmental Projects:

Indoor and Outdoor Air Quality Improvement:
Air quality improvement has remained a marginal issue in Bangladesh. Especially Urban Vehicular pollution has remained a seriously neglected area.  Good Earth worked for an alternative fuels training program in the Dhaka-Chittagong corridor districts. The program consisted mainly of training roadside garage mechanics and drivers on CNG conversion techniques and conducting public awareness training in the Comilla, Noakhali, Feni and Chittagong districts. The program was conducted in collaboration with ATFCan through support from Environment Canada with different local stakeholders.

Indoor air pollution through bio-mass has become identified as significant killer of mothers and children under five (<5) in the rural areas. Good Earth initiated an indoor pollution campaign which included:

1. Developing of publicity materials i.e. posters, leaflets
2. Community mobilization
3. Group discussion with different professional groups
4. Rallies and road show
5. Arrange workshops & seminars
6. Introducing Improved Cooking Stoves in Comilla
7. Advocacy within community and local administration for use of renewable energy i.e. Biogas plant, Solar House System

Tree plantation
Our regular social forestry program saw the distribution of some 2000 plants free of cost to the poor families and families with persons with disabilities. Credit support was also provided for nursery business.

Free Friday Clinic:
The free Friday Clinic in the village of Burgi, Kachua Upazila under Chandpur district supported people of this village for primary treatment and first aid from the clinic. From June 2006 to July 2007 around 1000 people received treatment from this Friday Clinic.

Water and Sanitation:
Last year Good Earth implemented “Flood Emergency Response Project” with the partnership of UNICEF in 26 Upazilas. We followed up with courtyard meetings and discussions with our micro-credit beneficiaries on using safe water, sanitary latrines and hygiene practice. Credits were provided for 155 families for setting up tube wells and sanitary latrines.   

Water seal latrine installation by community people     Rally on water and sanitation

Social Mobilization:
Social mobilization is a basic tool towards raising social awareness and development. Besides implementing projects we also conducted some seminars/workshops, community meetings on different social awareness raising issues like;

• Human Rights
• Empowerment of women
• Environmental Sanitation
• Child rights
• Disaster Management
• HIV/AIDS
• Disability

Our workers are at move for social mobilization program

Seminar/Workshop: