Nagar Daridra Basteebashir Unnayan Sangstha (NDBUS)

Urbis closing ceremony was held on 14th October 2010 at LGED auditorium in Agargaon. Participants of the ceremony were government officials, representatives from NGOs, international development agencies, practitioners working in Dhaka, NDBUS members and their community organizations. The day long program began at 9:30 and ended at 5 pm. Mr Saber Hossain Chowdhury, Honorable Member of Parliament was present as the Chief Guest. Professor Nazrul Islam, Chairman University Grants Commission Bangladesh and Founder of CUS, Engineer Ali Ahmed, National Project Director, UPPRP and Dr Dobalok Singha, Executive Director, DSK were present in the event as special guests. Mr Chowdhury informed the audience that the bill will be passed in the coming parliament session in December 2010. He also urged NDBUS members to advocate all 15 MPs in Dhaka city for supporting the bill in the parliament. He thanked the Urbis program and shared his belief that NDBUS will carry the objective of the project in th

প্রথম আলো - বস্তি উচ্ছেদ বন্ধে আইন হচ্ছে

NDBUS cordially invites you all to participate in the closing ceremony, to be held on 14th Oct 2010 at LGED Auditorium-Level 2, of the Urbis : The Urban Capacity Laboratory Program for NDBUS in Dhaka, Bangladesh implemented by CUS for Development Innovations Group (DIG).

A team of 10 CDCs of Rahamat Camp visited 4 CDCs and primary group members in Tongi Municipality on Thursday, September 30, 2010. The group visited the communities, met the CDC members and leaders and learnt about the ongoing activities towards poverty reduction in urban areas with support from UPPRP. As new CDCs, formed under NDBUS in Rahamat Camp, Mirpur 11, the group members found the visit very effective and learning from the old CDC members. NDBUS thanked the Tongi town UPPRP team, CDC members for arranging a pleasant visit in Tongi and shared their gratitude to UPPRP HQ to provide such an option for learning through exposure visits to UPPRP Towns.

Hundreds of poor families risk everything by living in top to ground perforated ramshackle buildings in the city. Over 200 families reside in such five decrepit housing blocks at WAPDA Camp in Mirpur-11. Photo: Anisur Rahman [http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=156252]

[Photo courtesy : Pieter]

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/print_news.php?nid=152857

Saturday, August 14, 2010 Shahana Siddiqui Few hours is all that was needed to destroy 2.5 acres of households. THURSDAY, 5 August. The police assure concerned basti bashis of Sattala, Mohakhali that no eviction would happen. The people believe the police officers and go on with their daily activities. The noon prayers end. Riot police suddenly appear, armed and ready to go. Demolition workers from nearby slums accompany the enforcements. A high up government officer takes a microphone and obscurely tells the people that their homes will be demolished. You have 30 minutes to evacuate. The race against time starts.... NOW! Chaos takes over. Two bulldozers appear. Riot police take position to put anyone out of line. Because to protest against the destruction of one's home would be wrong, would be illegal. Oh wait, that's what they are -- illegal. Thousands of people, homes, households are all illegal. They should not have been here to begin with. Go back to where you came from. I

http://www.dhakanews24.com/%E0%A6%AE%E0%A6%B9%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A8%E0%A6%97%E0%A6%B0%2C-mohanogor/11127.html [Click on the link for accessing the reporters unity meet the press]

Xinhua . United Nations aimed at retarding urban growth and depriving the poor of benefits and services increase poverty and environmental degradation, creating serious long-term problems that could be avoided by enlightened planning, a new United Nations study said Friday. The study, published in the United Nations Friday by the United Nations Population Fund and the International Institute for Environment and Development, examined Brazil, whose urban growth has been considerably more rapid than the countries in Europe and North America. At present, Brazil’s urban centres represent 80 per cent of the country’s population — up from 36 per cent in 1950. But while cities now provide 90 per cent of the country’s wealth, more than a quarter of its urban citizens are below the poverty line, and one in 15 lives in extreme poverty. Rather than addressing social inequalities and planning for urban growth, Brazil had adopted policies that discriminated against urban settlement by poor

ONCE again, the poor have had to bear the brunt of what is understood as developmental activity. Sattala slum in Mahakhali which housed about five thousand people has been razed within a matter of hours. The residents who are mostly poor apparel workers and transport workers find themselves in the streets, forced to bivouac under the open sky with their children, the aged and the sick. They had lived in the area for thirty years. It is alleged that not all residents were given time enough to retrieve their belongings and no notice of eviction was served; but this is refuted by the officials concerned. New Age on Friday published a moving report accompanied by a photograph on the sudden plight of the poor people faced with the onslaught of the bulldozer. According to the report, the stated purpose of the demolition drive was to recover land (5 acres and 28 decimals) for construction of the physiotherapy college. The land, it was also stated, belongs to the health directorate. Slum

Staff Correspondent A demolition squad of the directorate general of health services razed the Sattala slum at Mahakhali to the ground on Thursday ignoring the outcry of the poor, living there for more than three decades. Health Service sources said, the shanties were dismantled to make room for the government to build a physiotherapy college on the five-acre and 28 decimal plot. They said that the government had allocated Tk 50 crore for building the college. A detachment of about 300 police joined a health service team, led by a senior assistant secretary of the health ministry Shafiquzzaman and an executive magistrate, to demolish the slum. Hundreds of slum dwellers blocked the slum entrance, chanting slogans opposing the wholesale eviction without rehabilitation, in a vain effort to foil their eviction, as the demolition squad reached the spot. Ignoring the slum dwellers’ protests, the demolition squad dismantled over 500 shanties until the evening rendering thousan

Thursday, August 5, 2010Front Page 334 NGOs shut in four months Corruption, misuse of foreign funds, patronisation of militancy alleged Alpha Arzu The government cancelled registration of 334 non-government organisations (NGOs) in the last four months for their involvement in corruption, misuse of foreign funds and patronisation of militancy. The NGO Affairs Bureau (NGOAB) launched a stringent drive to clean up the sector and seized moveable and non-moveable property of these organisations, which were operating in the name of social welfare, charity and volunteerism. The move is significant as NGOAB had cancelled only 56 foreign-funded NGOs in the last two decades since 1990. The bureau cancelled the registration in April, May, June, July and August-2, after a series of probes into violation of rules and laws to run foreign-funded projects in the country. An official at the NGOAB told The Daily Star, "We could not give you details of the cause of cancelling the NGOs' registrat

Janata Tower to become first software park Staff Correspondent All is set to turn the abandoned and much talked about 11-storey Janata Tower at the capital's Karwan Bazar into the country's first software park. The park will bring the nation's leading software and hardware companies together so that they can share ideas and technologies, and collaborate towards the development of the country's science and technology, sources said. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took the decision at the National ICT Taskforce meeting held at her office yesterday. This was the first meeting of the taskforce -- a committee to guide and facilitate the ICT sector of the country -- since Awami League-led alliance assumed office. According to Anir Chowdhury, the policy adviser to the Access to Information (A2I) programme of the Prime Minister's Office, the government had plans to build software parks in Kaliakoir and Mohakhali. But they are stalled because of technical problems and high dens

Hannah in Bangladesh: Rahmat Camp

''It is really great to see the collaboration between UPPR, CUS and NDBUS, and I hope the collaboration produces fruitful results. ................... I think the community will benefit the most from this kind of strategy- beginning with their leadership development and making them "in charge" of the projects in their camp.'' Hannah Sholder Fulbright Scholar, Bangladesh September 2009-2010 [After visiting Rahamat Camp on 11 July, 2010.] Please click on the link http://hsbangladesh.blogspot.com to read about her visit.

NDBUS general body meets its members on July 8 at CUS 302 Shyamoli to review the ongoing activities alongwith a specific agenda to discuss about CUP’s initiative on establish new BOSC, Setting up a Blood Bank, Inactive members of NDBUS and their replacement etc. The meeting started at 10 am and concluded at noon after a presentation of video documentary on NDBUS activities with support from Urbis, managed by CUS in Dhaka. NDBUS Chairman presided over the meeting and respected NDBUS members Abdul Hai, Abdus Sattar, Yasmin Akhter, Md Harun, Mamtaz Akhter Aduri, M A Rashid Khan spoke on the occasion. M A Rashid Khan, general secretary of NDBUS informed the general members present on various activities going on with Urbis support.

UN Under Secretary General Anna Tibaijuka, who is also the Executive Director of UN-Habitat visits Korail, the biggest low income settlement area in Dhaka on 21st June. She was welcomed by the NDBUS EC member Fatema Akhter alongwith others from the community. She visited the community and learnt from the CDC leaders on their experience with UPPRP towards reduction of urban poverty.

To mobilise the organisation and ensure representation of the urban poor in Dhaka, NDBUS has formed all 10 Zonal Committees in 10 Zones of DCC area. The formal introduction of the committee members will be done in the last week of June after a pre-welcome meeting with the designatories in the Zonal Committees. The meeting is scheduled to be held on 19th June.

To maintain highest degree of professionalism and transparency in NDBUS Savings Program, NDBUS has acquired a MIS Software to take input of all the savers basic hh data and deposit. The program is being tested and likely to cover all the savings members of NDBUS. Till to date NDBUS has 115 Savings Group in Zone 8 of DCC.

An Output Purpose Review (OPR) Mission of UPPRP visited NDBUS pilot project area called Rahamat camp under the UPPRP Program. Within the camp one community called Concern Camp was taken for demonstration of the Community Action Planning process. NDBUS members in conjunction with UPPRP Team in Dhaka and constant support of Urbis team prepared Community Action Plan (CAP) of one CDC in Rahamat Camp. The community people presented the CAP to the OPR mission on 22nd May 2010.As a part of the CAP, the team also collected HH data of 200 families in Concern Camp to analyse the socio-economic condition of the camp area. The findings were shared with OPR mission at NDBUS office as well as discussion on various aspects of NDBUS-UPPRP partnership activities.

NDBUS savings program has opened 100th savings group on 31st May 2010. These all include a total of 1500 members of NDBUS. Deposited amount of the members in two categories of deposit Tk 50 and Tk 100 per month by the group members reach to 1,95,400 BDT. Congratulations to the savings team!

The Daily Bhorer Kagoj will be publishing news on the urban poor by DCC wards on weekly basis regularly on Monday in its SARA DESH page. NDBUS will contribute the information through their database and a slum mapping study carried out by CUS in 2005.