After a long journey, I have arrived safely in Dhaka, Bangladesh.  I had a few hours off to relax, then it was lunch and straight into a series of meetings to sort out the precise details of my agenda (which has changed a bit since I posted last) and find out a bit more about the Dhaka Community Based Rehabilitation project, which is funded by the Scottish Government and TLM Scotland.  I attended a staff meeting, so met most of the staff, with the meeting going backwards and forwards between English and Bangla - and once again wished I spoke Bangla, as given the laughter I am sure I missed some very good jokes!  We were focusing on the area of peer education, as one project aim is to improve educational opportunities and attainment of young people from families affected by leprosy and/or disability or otherwise marginalised.  There are two key strategies here, one is providing scholarships to help pay for the expenses of attending school, things like uniforms, books and resources.  For more advanced students, this can include school fees, which in primary school are paid by the government.  The students were selected by the Self Help Groups their parents belong to, with around 80 students funded by the Scottish Government and several hundred more funded through TLM Netherlands.  The other strategy is to encourage the students by providing peer education and mentoring support, and that was what was being discussed today.  It looks as if I may well be presenting awards for academic excellence in a few days to the students who have done best in this past academic year.  I will be spending two days out in the field with project staff later this week, so look forward to more news later.

This photo is of most of the staff team ranging from the Programme (Jiptha) and Project (Mallica) managers, though most are staff who work with directly with communities.  Back row l-r Sujit, Prodyut, Probir, Jiptha, Bithi, Roslin, front row l-r Soikat, Mallica, Shilpi, F. Mousmi, Gopal.  Unfortunately Mahsin, their Monitoring and Evaluation officer, with whom (along with Jiptha) I have worked most closely recently, wasn't at this meeting, but I will make sure to get a photo of her before I go.  We will be meeting later this week to look at a funding application to the Department for International Development for an expansion to this project to increase the livelihoods support (skills training and access to micro-credit) in some of the more outlying areas, as well as to look at reporting on the Scottish Government funded project.  All very complicated indeed, but she is a very capable young lady.  We are delighted to have got through the first stage of application to DFID, and are working hard on the full application.  Sadly our last application, for a project in Nigeria, was unsuccessful, but we hope to use that as a learning experience and see this one funded, reaching many more people more effectively than the current project budget allows us to do.

Anyway, I'm off to eat my very tasty smelling dinner, then go to bed, it's been a very long day - it's been about 30 hours since I last slept, and have to get up and let people into the building tomorrow morning before flying up to Nilphamari to visit DBLM and hopefully one of their rural clinics too.