March 2008 : The Distribution of Live stock (cows) to rural poor female at Bikrampur, Munshiganj District

Women receiving training on rearing livestock.

CSA always believes economic emancipation is an important precondition for sustainable advancement. Our country is one of the least developed countries around the globe and women are the most vulnerable group of people. CSA tries to provide some financial assistance particularly to the rural women so that they can involve themselves in income generating activities.

CSA took a survey in deciding what types of works are suitable for a particular area where women can participate spontaneously keeping their existing social values. CSA found that women from Bikrampur region of Munshiganj District, are most interested in livestocks like cows, goats etc.

Therefore CSA arranged some finance and provided them to a few vulnerable women so that they could buy some cows and rear them for few years and sell them in the market. CSA is happy that this small project was very fruitful and expecting to expand this successful project further if financial support is available.

August 2007 : The Distribution of Pure Drinking water and Dettol soap to Diarrhoea affected people at Haji Camp Dhaka

Muslims gather in Dhaka.

In mid 2007, Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh was submerged by sudden severe flash flood. CSA realised that something has to be done to help at least one group of flood affected people of the capital with its limited resources.

The geo position of Bangladesh is such that natural calamities are regular phenomena for this country. Therefore, people are accustomed to such disasters and they are aware of handling such calamites. But that particular flash flood was mentionable because, after the flood many types of diseases especially diarrhoea out broke the capital.

Many temporary health centres were set up to provide treatment for diarrhoea affected people. Shortage of fresh waters and hygienic materials made the disease very acute for the health centres.

CSA contacted with the health centres and collected necessary information about their requirements. CSA found that the health centres were shortage of fresh water and other hygienic products. CSA took initiative to stand beside the affected people. It collected some money and finally gave 5000 litres fresh bottles of water and hundreds of pieces of hygienic soaps for Haji Camp health centre where hundreds of diarrhoea affected people were having treatment.

June 2007 : Inspection of voter list and National “ID Card” under “Sripur Pilot Project”, Sripur, Gazipur District

ID card checking.

In 2007, Bangladesh government took an enormous effort to make a fresh, transparent and accurate voter list and to issue National Identity Card for the first time in the history of the nation. It was of course an ambitious and expensive project for Bangladesh.

Nevertheless the Election Commission of Bangladesh with the help of Bangladesh government and international support formulated a project to give it a reality.

The Election Commission selected an area of Gazipur district as a test case. They installed laptops, printers, web camera and other equipments in various schools of the area to collect information of the voters. The EC also developed software in this regard. Local youths were trained how to collect data and restore them in the main server.

CSA, along with other non-government organisations, was invited to observe and submit a report about the on going massive project at Sripur, Gazipur. On 21 June 2007, CSA inspected a couple of centres where voter lists were being prepared by the trained people. It was indeed a challenging project. Local youths were trained how to input data into computers.

CSA observed the youths were doing a fantastic job in this regard. Despite some limitations CSA highly appreciated such innovative idea which was in fact a prerequisite for a free and fair election in all level of our country. Election Commission also produced National Identity card for the first time in the history of Bangladesh from the same project. After the observation, CSA made some recommendations to the Election Commission for the success of the project.

November 2003 : Seminar on Fair Local Election with the collaboration of Hunger Project in Sunamganj District

Seminar proceedings.

CSA is always keen to work with other organisations. In the mid November of 2003, CSA organised a seminar on Free and Fair Election under the aegis of Hunger Project, Bangladesh.

People from all walks of life including civil society, students, professionals etc participated on the seminar and gave their valuable opinion on how a free, fair and credible election could be held from local level to national level.

Participants emphasised on to publish all the basic information about each candidate in an election so that voters could choose them correctly and more accurately. They also suggested that some basic information like educational background, whether the candidate was a defaulter, any criminal proceedings pending or not etc must be included.

CSA believes opinion from grass root level is a precondition to flourish democracy in our country. A decision should not be imposed from top. Rather the process should be like bottom up. Therefore CSA takes every opportunity to gather opinion and views from the grass root level by organising seminar, symposium or workshop either individually or collectively.