Brac, US embassy to work for empowering young girls in coastal regions

Brac and the US embassy in Dhaka will work together in Bangladesh for empowering young girls in climate-vulnerable regions.

People concerned said the two parties will work to implement the Gender Equity and Equality Action (GEEA) Fund of the US State Government in the coming days.

At an event arranged at Brac Centre Inn in the capital on Monday, organisers said they will use alternative learning pathways (ALPs) method to empower more girls in the country.

At the event, Brac showcased the success of its localised apprenticeship-based skills training model in transforming the lives of young people from marginalised communities.

Speakers at the event said Bangladesh is a riverine country that is highly vulnerable to climate, weather-related and geophysical hazards due to its geographical location. Despite producing only 0.56% of the global emissions changing our climate, Bangladesh ranks seventh on the list of countries most vulnerable to climate devastation.

Livelihoods of general people in climate-vulnerable areas are often challenged due to frequent floods, storms, and scarcity of purified drinking water due to salinity, and for women, it is all the more difficult due to traditional norms, they added.

Katrina Fotovat, senior official to the Secretary of State in the Office of Global Women's Issue, Helen Lafave, Charge D'Affairs, US Embassy in Dhaka, Asif Saleh, executive director, Brac, Safi Rahman Khan, director (Education, Skills Development and Migration) were present at the event among others.

In 2012, Brac, Unicef, ILO and the Bureau of Non-Formal Education launched the Skills Training for Advancing Resources as part of the Basic Education for Hard-to-Reach Urban Working Children project.

The training builds on the traditional "Ustad-Shagred" (master-apprentice) model, where out-of-school adolescents and youth are placed as apprentices with local businesspersons.

Over the years, STAR has demonstrated its success in providing an alternative learning pathway by training over 120,000 young people, especially in reaching around 60% of girls who had no learning options.