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Changing people's mind-set
Munima Sultana
12/31/2005
Social responsibility, consciousness, interaction, feedback, building up relationship, participation, networking, etc are the words of the communication study. But these are the core words in the development world to get an achievement in a programme.
By understanding and adopting the essence of the words, people involved in the social movement or development can get success in their activities through mobilising a social movement.
With this objective, Dhaka Development Forum (DDF), a network of seven non-government organisations, was able to gather like minded people -- men, women and schoolboys and girls -- in the city. Since 1998, it has been working to remind other people of their responsibility in early marriage, birth and marriage registration and violence against women, etc. What they have been doing was to try to play the role of a watchdog in their respective areas and knock the people whenever any anomaly was found.
Hafiza Begum, principal of Adabor Model School, was sharing such an example with this scribe recently. Soon after she realised that the mother of a bright girl student of her school had fixed up the marriage of her daughter, she called her in the school and was able to motivate her in stopping the marriage.
" I talked to her to understand her reasons.. ..then showed all possible bad things of early marriage as well as let her know the good things about girls' education so that she can understand the need for cancelling the marriage…Even I have to assure her that I will take care of her girl's security if local hooligans try to disturb her," she said, to describe her success in carrying the social responsibility she felt for her student who was the daughter of a domestic help.
Hafiza, Director of Prottoy, one of the seven members of DDF, was not only one who was successful, there were more than 359 people, who have similar kinds of success stories in their respective areas. These people have been working as Gender Change Activists (GCA) under these seven organisations to create a social movement on these issues throughout the city.
These are Bangladesh Association of Women For Self Employment, Promotional Research Advocacy Training Action Yard (Prottoy), Rural Health and Development Society, Self Help Association of Rural People through Education and Entrepreneurship, Development Wheel, Hitoyshi Bangladesh and Initiative for People's Development.
While exchanging views at a meeting at DDF office recently, the network members said that this kind of activities, at least, have influenced the mind of those people who consciously and unconsciously behaved otherwise even knowing that it was wrong.
They felt that by carrying out the work in such a disorganized fashion so far on social issues, an awareness level was created among the people. However, they realised that there was still need for behavioural changes among the people. And this has united these organisations to remind the people of the behaviours expected of them.
And for this, once a victim of women repression Lina was able to get justice in her life. She used to bring her mother-in-law and sister-in-law into different meetings organised in her are at ward no. 51 and was able to sensitise them. Lina said that now her mother-in-law alerts her son, if anything wrong was found in his behaviour.
A schoolboy of ward no. 38 has also earned another success in the fight to stop violence against women. When he found that an elderly man in his next-door always beat his wife, he mobilised others including his parents and made the man understand how he behaved. "The man was so embarrassed when we requested not to beat his wife that he could not say a word,' he described his success saying that since then, none heard anything wrong from that apartment.
Dr Mahmudur Rahman, Chairperson of DDF, said the progress in the people's mind and thought, which has been observed so far while carrying out different development activities, needs strengthening. He added that this forum has been helping all to earn the objective.
But he said DDF was not alone, there were 11 other networks working with Gender and Development Alliance (GDA) throughout the country with the similar objectives.
Dr Rahman while sharing his view in work with GCA said that these activities have now discovered many lacking in the governance for which commitments like birth or marriage registration could not get success.
He said birth registration was made mandatory through law but local government was not well informed of their duties.
"But our work has at least awaken the people who have so far been sleeping and mobilise them to work on their own rather than depending on the state or society," he said. The members of DDF or GDA were able to register the births of all the babies only through making the people's representatives aware.
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