ENRICH Program

The Enhancing Resources and Increasing Capacities Of Poor Households towards Elimination of their Poverty (ENRICH) of people living below the poverty line in the rural areas is a multi-year, multi-country Program. Srizony Foundation along with the help and assistance of PKSF aim to improve the quality of living of the poor along with the improvement of their health and nutrition status of the people living in the rural areas who can not afford them. The main purpose of this integrated program is to empower and enhance the human dignity of the project participants through holistic approach providing support so they can move forward towards reducing poverty in a sustainable way and also to keep health and risk free.
The overall goal of Srizony Foundation in The ENRICH programme is to contribute to reduction of poverty, improving the quality of living of the poor and to reduce health issues and mortality in the rural areas by addressing issues critical to the people living under the poverty line, the young generation and to the health of mothers, newborns and young children. Srizony Foundation with the ENRICH programme seeks to achieve this goal through strengthening of health, education, youth development, climate change, community level action, welfare of the disadvantaged and freedom fighters system with an emphasis on community systems, improving nutrition of pregnant women, infants and young children and ensuring accountability of results at all levels. Srizony Foundation with this ENRICH programme takes a comprehensive approach to improve delivery of essential services to enhance the quality of living of the poor in the societies of rural areas.

The ENRICH Project will

Special Financial Assistance Programme for the poor.
Providing a saving system for the poor people.
Special capital investment for the people of rural areas.
Youth development.
Sports and culture enhancement.
Gaining awareness of the climate change risks.
Welfare of freedom fighters.
Planned home and centres for the people.
Plant cultivation.
Community-Based Interventions for people living in rural areas.
Promote consumption of local, culturally appropriate foods.
Help communities overcome cultural barriers that undermine access to healthy food for women and young children.
Teach families ways to keep everyone well nourished.
Train local health officials/staffs to better understand the problem of malnutrition.
Improve how health clinics deliver nutrition services and treatment of malnutrition.
Increase the availability and diversity of nutrient-dense foods, through bio fortified crops, kitchen gardens and micronutrient powders added to foods.
Influence local government to improve health and nutrition policies.
Providing local women with mentor ship opportunities.
Strengthen governance, policy and public engagement.

All programme activities will take into consideration Women Empowerment good governance principles and environmental sustainability.

Facts

Most of the people of Bangladesh lives under the poverty line.
Out of 166 million people 85% of them live in rural areas.
More than 50% are women among people living in rural areas.
85% of people of Bangladesh live on agriculture.
People living in rural areas are out of services from health, financial and educational institutions.
Almost half of all global deaths in children under the age of five have malnutrition as an underlying cause.
Almost three million children die every year from causes related to malnutrition worldwide.
More than 160 million young children are stunted (short of their age) due to malnutrition throughout the world.
A child who gets enough healthy food before turning two finishes at least four more grades of school and is 33% more likely to escape poverty as an adult.

Health

Providing comprehensive primary healthcare services to all the households in the selected area is one of the main things of The ENRICH program. Srizony Foundation establishes various linkages with the hospitals, clinics, organisations and individuals also who provide healthcare services to the disadvantaged people of the rural area. Various health assistants who supervises the field work and conducts static clinics. Costs are substantially subsidized; for the very poor, the services are free.
Currently Srizony Foundation has given 2040 families health cards in the rural areas. The card holders are given many health privileges and our staffs are working hard to find more poor families to help in the sectors of health by giving them the health cards.

Education

The dropout rate in the rural areas are alarming in Bangladesh. Srizony Foundation with The ENRICH program is currently trying to find the main cause of this alarming problem. Srizony Foundation with The ENRICH Educational Assistance Centers (ECAs) are operating in the rural areas areas. In this project Srizony Foundation has founded many Educational Help Centres to help the Primary level students in their studies and to avoid dropouts. Steps have been taken to establish 30 more Educational Help Centres in the rural areas. The main thing is to help the students do their homework and understand their studies because almost all of them can’t afford a Tution teacher. We make sure they also take part in extra curricular activities such as recitation of poems, dance, singing etc. We also provide scholarships to meritorious students.

Special Credit Service

There are few types of credit service that Srizony Foundation provides in The ENRICH program. Income Generating Activities Loan (IGAL), Livelihood Improvement Loan (LIL), and Asset Creation Loan (ACL) are some of those. Srizony Foundation gave almost 8 million taka loan to the poor under The ENRICH program.
All the credit services can be accessed simultaneously by a household. All the service charges are estimated in declining balance method. These services allows the people living below the poverty line access to credit system and helps them to initiate their plans to improve their quality of living.

Special saving scheme

Capital formation has many forms and among them savings is one of the methods. Srizony Foundation has designed a special savings scheme under The ENRICH program for the ultra-poor households. Female-headed households and households with disabled members are particularly eligible to join the savings scheme. Under this the head women of a ultra-poor family has the privilege of savings. They used the money to acquire appropriate assets for themselves.

Welfare of the disadvantaged and freedom fighters

Srizony Foundation is working tirelessly to find extremely disadvantaged people such as the disabled, dalits (the so called untouchables), beggars, cleaners, female agricultural workers are given special attention to graduate themselves from poverty with the help of The ENRICH program. Beggars rehabilitation programme is one of the initiatives in this ENRICH program.
Under this project run by Srizony Foundation the freedom fighters are being recognised for their contribution to the Liberation War of Bangladesh. The freedom fighters have been brought under ENRICH health programme, and are provided free health and medical services.

Climate change interventions

Srizony Foundation has also taken climate change awareness in hand within this ENRICH program. A major emphasis is given on raising awareness regarding climate change and its impact on everyone’s life. Methods like Group discussion and interaction between households are also used to gain awareness. Some adaptation activities such as raising the plinths of houses and planting of trees and bushes for protection of houses from strong winds, and also some mitigation activities such as installation of solar home systems and promotion of improved cooking stoves are encouraged and facilitated. This creates awareness among the people living in rural areas and they begin to do whatever they can to prevent the climate change for their own sakes.

Sports and cultural dimensions

Many initiatives has been taken under the Srizony Foundation as a part of ENRICH program to promote sports and cultural activities which are the ingredients of fuller and richer human lives. Among children in educational institutions and other appropriate facilities. This programme is being implemented in the rural areas where different kinds of sports and cultural competitions are arranged.

Community-level action

Under its community-level development component, Srizony Foundation under this ENRICH program promotes repairing or building culverts, bridges, sanitary latrines and shallow tube-wells in public places such as schools, colleges, madrasas, mosques, temples, and libraries. We have built 9 new concrete latrines along with the previous ones in the centres for the people to have safe sanitation. We are constantly trying our level best to help and ensure a healthy environment for the disadvantaged people as much as we can.

Youth development and job linkage

Srizony Foundation has many initiatives on youth training. And under The ENRICH project we have founded some youth training centres just to train the youth in the rural area just to give them a little bit of advantage in the job market. Job linkage initiatives are taken after successful completion of the training. Through such intermediation many young individuals of different rural areas have found employment opportunities in many reputed companies. This initiative has changed the living quality of many families in this rural area. We constantly visit these youth train centres just to ensure that they are getting proper helps to attain the ability to get the job they desire.
Development efforts face an uphill battle when populations are burdened by poverty and malnutrition along with less educational facilities especially the most vulnerable. Srizony Foundation’s investment in this sector really improved the quality of living of many people in the rural areas we have been working on. The ENRICH program is a further commitment by Srizony Foundation to help poor families realise their true potentials. We are pleased to be joining with world vision and our other Partners on this important project. With strong partnerships from leading organisations, this project will bring the best of each on the table so we will have a greater impact on those who needs access to this most.