Rural Livelihood Security Project (RLSP), Narail
The Rural Livelihood
Security Project was a response to the Flood 1998 in the district
of Narail. The project was undertaken with financial assistance
from MISREOR (through Caritas Bangladesh) to support 260 flood-affected
families with limited amount of free seeds. In addition, they
were provided with interest-free loans for the first year for
agricultural production. A reasonable service charge (10%) has
been introduced from the second year of loan distribution. Eventually
the project has been restructured as a “Rural Livelihood
Security Projects by introducing a few humanitarian policies that
allows BDPC to ensure more benefits for the participants.
Two of the important elements of the policies are, (a) any amount
of outstanding loan of a deceased person will be absolutely written
off, and (b) introduction of a weekly one taka savings with a
benevolent fund that guarantees instant payment of taka five thousand
to the family of a deceased group-member.
Approximately 400 women have been participating in this project and approximately a total fund of Tk. 782,000 is in operation of the project as of December June 2005.
In addition, some other components have been included in this project for ensuring further benefit to the participating communities. This means inclusion of other activities like pre-primary education, primary education, non-formal education and continuous education for the participating families, mainly for children, adolescents and women.
