Nagar Daridra Basteebashir Unnayan Sangstha (NDBUS)

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.

NDBUS has started its savings program for members in Zone 8 as a pilot program where community members’ ownership to the savings is created in a unique way. The business plan and operational plan has been provided to the UPPRP on 28th April by Bryan Winston who was visiting NDBUS. Bryan Winston visited NDBUS activities in Dhaka during 26-30 and presented the business plan before NDBUS EC members. After receiving the comments on the Business plan the program is shared with Mr. Richard Geier, International Project Manager.

NDBUS Partnership Development Team has formed its First CDC (Locally known as Consul Camp) in Rahamat Camp. The CDC consists of 10 Primary Groups and composed of 20 members, taking 2 persons from each primary groups. The CDC is headed by Ms Pervin as Chiarman. Other deignatories are Ms Sahera, Vice Chairman, Secretery Ms Lipi, Treasurer Ms Rosie. Mobilisation work for formation of other 9 CDCs are ongoing.

On 21st April 2010, NDBUS started its own savings program in Zone 8 of DCC, commonly known as Mirpur and Pallabi area.The savings program is a new form, devloped with the support of Development Innovations Group, that offers ownership of the community over the savings. NDBUS as an organsiation gets some percentage of service charge from the group members in terms of providing technical support to the group members. Till to date as many as 13 groups have deposited for savings and a good number of groups are in the queue. NDBUS has been rceieving support from The Dhaka Mercantile Cooperative Bank Ltd., a cooperative bank, in collecting the deposit money from the group members. The savings program is solely aimed at NDBUS members and is a pilot of NDBUS in Zone 8 area in DCC. The successful model will be replicated in other areas.

NDBUS has been communicating with the editor a leading bangla daily to get space with the news of urban poor on a regular basis. The news will contain urban poor and settlemnts obtianed through NDBUS own resources being supported by the CUS Slum Mapping done in 2005. The published news will be uploaded in the blog site and NDBUS is expecting the publication in the next couple of weeks.

A total 100 PCs have been formed in MARCH by the NDBUS Members as a pert of the ongoing membership collection program. It has made a comprehensive work plan to register new urban poor members in the organisation.

DAKHINA VILA House 4 Lane 3 Section 11 Pallabi, Mirpur email: ndbusdhaka@gmail.com web: ndbus.blogspot.com The office will accomodate UPPRP activities for Rahamat Camp, NDBUS Savings Program and NDBUS Trainings activities for its members.

NDBUS as a partner of UPPPRP has started mobilisation activities for the urban poor in Rahamat Camp area. The proposal was accepted by the UPPRP, Dhaka and the contact was signed on 21st March 2010. NDBUS is going start such activities in 9 other communities shortly for which NDBUS has already collected data on those areas and drafted proposal (DRAFT)on three communities as per agreed plan with UPPRP.

NDBUS has applied to NGO Bureau for obtaining permission to work as an NGO and receive foreign donations. NDBUS started the application process in mid November 2009 and finally received the requirements from the NGO Affairs Bureau to submit the necessary documents. By this time, they have also received recommendation from the concerned Member of the Parliament. NDBUS has gathered all relevant information and in the process for obtaining necessary permission from Social Welfare Department. It is expected that NDBUS will be submitting the documents by the end of April 2010 to the NGO Affairs Bureau.

As per agreed action plan of NDBUS for January – June, NDBUS has mobilized all its resources under membership development. As a part of the plan, in March 59 primary committees, 8 ward committees, 3 thana committees have been formed under 1 Zonal committee. The newly formed Zonal Committee is in Zone 8, commonly known as Mirpur area in Dhaka city. The primary committee consists 885 persons in total. But the committee has not been declared officially strategically. The NDBUS will officially declare the Zonal Committees organizing events after formation of all 10 Zonal Committees. NDBUS is expecting to regularise all its ward and thana committees by May 15, 2010.

NDBUS applied for membership of the Coalition of the Urban Poor (CUP) on March 9, 2010 and the receipt copy of the application has been forwarded to all members of the coalition along with a request letter to accept NDBUS as their co-members through March 11 to 24, 2010. The issue has been accepted by the Executive Committee of CUP as a meeting agenda to be held in May 2010. By this time, members of th sub-committee for accepting new members in CUP has been met on the issues and requested for acceptance of NDBUS as a new member of the coalition working for the urban poor.

A book launching event at the Department of architecture, University of Asia Pacific (UAP) House #51, Road # 4/A, Dhanmondi, Dhaka was organized jointly by the University of Asia Pacific and the Centre for Urban Studies (CUS), Dhaka on April 8, 2010, Thursday at 5:30 pm. Prof. Nazrul Islam, Chairman University Grants Commission of Bangladesh was the chief guest and Prof. Dr. Abdul Matin Patwary, Vice Chancellor of University of Asia Pacific was present as the special guest. Institute of Architects Bangladesh (IAB)President was also present among other architects, planners. UPPRP Project Director Mr Ali Ahmed, International Program Manager Mr Richard Geier were also present and spoke for the importance of such a practice. NDBUS Chairman, General Secretary, Treasure also shared their experince and sought support in reducing their housing problem. The booklet is an outcome of a workshop on ‘Low Cost Housing for the Urban Poor’ with 4th year students of University of Asia Pacific as part ...

MoU between NDBUS and DMCBL to provide savings facilities to NDBUS members in slum and squatter settlements of DCC has been signed on 7th April at Dhaka Mercantile Cooperative Bank Ltd. (DMCBL)'s office with presence of visiting savings Expert from Chennai, Ms D. Buvaneswari. Ms Salma A. Shafi, Project Adviser, Urbis and Chairman of DMCBL, Mr Abu Zafar Chowdhury was also present. NDBUS Chairman Mr Abdul Hamid Fakir and Mr Belayet Hossain, Vice Chairman of DMCBL signed on behalf of respective organisation. Under this MOU, NDBUS and DMCBL will work in partnership to implement the NDBUS savings program. Specifically, each organization will be responsible for the following: NDBUS : NDBUS will be responsible to: 1. NDBUS will form savings groups initially in Mirpur and then in other slum areas around Dhaka. 2. Each savings group will be directed to complete the DMCBL account opening forms to set up a bank account in the group’s name with three group members as signatories. 3. Account me...

NDBUS Savings Programs arranged two day training sessions for 12 CLs and 2 community promoters for its saving activities in Zone 8. The two day Community Liasion Induction Training SChedule included CLs responsibility, Group Formation, How to record keeping, how to conduct group meeting and the systems designed for the NDBUS Savings Program. The two day works also include group work and hand on training with arrangement of a demo of group meeting. The training was conducted by Mr A K M Saiduzzaman Milon and Mr David Biswas with support from D. Buvaneswari, Savings Expert from Capaston Finnacial Services, Chennai, India. The training is being participated by the all members of the savings team of NDBUS.