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8 th Issue

January- June 2016

This Issue

BITA cultural campaign of creating awareness on census for Undocumented Myanmar Nationals (UMNs) living in Bangladesh

Effective planning both the Community

& Supportive Organizations could reduce Digester suffering locally.

Observing World Theatre Day 2016

jointly with BITA & AFC BITA inaugurated a mass awareness

campaign program on prevention of GBV in CHT

Expanded Citizen-UP connectivity to

improve local governance

Mobilization of women circle’s ensured

water for the slum dweller

Mobilization of women circle’s ensured

water for the slum dweller

The relation between Goethe-Institut

and BITA will be steady creating mass

awareness on Climate Change Impact

Creating instrumental music fusion

jointly with Bangladeshi & France artist

BITA’s work to develop TCI advocacy

platform in Bangladesh

National Adivasi Alliance India

representatives visited BITA

Women circle

We are happy to published BITA E-News letter- 8th

edition. We try to publish some of significant work of

BITA which could inspire to readers with more

involvement with us to know each other. In this edition

we focused some of cultural intervention where youth

involvements are significant. We welcome your ideas

and feedback, so please email us at:

bitactg@gmail.com.You can also stay connected with us

through our website: www.bitactg.org

We are always open to your new & creative ideas and

try to accommodate as much as possible.

Sisir Dutta Executive Director

Message from Executive Director

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), on behalf of the Government of Bangladesh (GoB), ad

undertaken a census to get a proper estimate of the number of Undocumented Myanmar Nationals (UMNs)

living in Bangladesh. The International Orgaanization for Migration (IOM) had been given the additional

responsibility by the GoB to support the BBS in raising awareness regarding this census. In response to IOM’s

call, as a resource organization BITA carried out the assignment ‘Creating Awareness on Census for

Undocumented Myanmar Nationals in Bangladesh” through cultural campaign. It focused on the importance,

process and potential benefits of census among UMNs and local community. The campaign along with video

documentation started on 26 May 2016, the events/performances concluded on 14 June and the video

editing completed on 20 July 2016.

In line with intended

objectives, the project succeeded in raising awareness among 36,050 populations about the importance,

process and potential benefits for the UMNs of Census process. It was effective in increasing common

understanding on UMNs in the communities at selected geographical locations of the 5 districts under the

campaign. Considering the objective, BITA introduced 3 sorts of popular folk cultural forms in community

communication, focusing on the Census of Undocumented Myanmar Nationals in Bangladesh. Folk theatre,

kabigaan and puppet are participatory as well as communicative means to stimulate the people. BITA

followed the process of cultural intervention in four steps: preparation, organizing, show dissemination and

post-show activities.

BITA cultural

campaign of creating

awareness on census

for Undocumented

Myanmar Nationals

(UMNs) living in

Bangladesh

Effective planning both the Community &

Supportive Organizations could reduce Digester

suffering locally.

Focusing the slogan of “Durjogae Pabona Vhai, Durjog

kae Amra Korbo Joy” IDR project of BITA observed the digester preparation day 2016 at project working area of Ramgoti Upazilla under Luxmipur district by the joint initiatives of Ramgoti Upazilla administration & Germen Red Cross. The program is designed with the rally, conducting meeting, cultural competition for children, prize giving ceremony etc. In the event Mr. Abdul Oyhed, the Upazilla Chairmen of Ramgoti attended at chief guest & Mr.S.M.Shafi Kamal,Upazilla Nirbari Officer (U.N.O) presided the meeting as president. The rest of the guest were Mr.Md.Aman Ullah, project officer of Ramgoti Upazilla, NGO representatives, civil society representations, women leaders, beneficiaries of IDR project & community volunteers.

As chief guest the Upazilla Chairmen said that communities who are living besides Magna river bank suffer digester time in every year. Lots of resources are damaged due to less pre-preparedness of safety initiatives & absence of awareness. So we should need to prepare our self best to reducing the digester based vulnerability. As protecting measure we should plant at least 10 no. of newly grown plant in the every house yard. Locally digester prevention committee has to develop by joining initiatives of Upazilla administration, Union parished and we will dialogue with the local parliamentarian member for building 5 no of Cyclone centre here.

The U.N.O of Ramgoti Upazilla said that we are in burning time for creating much awareness on digester preparation. This is the good overview where local Government administration & NGO’s are initiated the event jointly. Creative competition for the children, cultural performance & prize giving ceremony were held as well. From BITA the project officer Mr. Suman Sen coordinated the event. This is mention that the IDR (Inclusion of Older People in Disaster Resilience in South Asia) project is implementing by the technical support of Help Age International & financial support by the MAC foundation.

Mobilization of

women circle’s

ensured water

for the slum

dweller

After terrible cyclone of 1991 in Chittagong a slum has been build gradually at SRB

colony beside railway line. SRB colony is situated under the area of 29 no. Madarbari ward of Chittagong City Corporation. Before the cyclone the HH’s (household) are stayed in the city sacredly and most of them are from Comilla and Barisal. There are about 400 households are living and population size is about 1650 more. As it slum no water is supplied from WASA and they has no another support for getting water. They had to buy water from outsides for household every uses. Due to fewer water supplies the slum dwellers were suffered lots of in their everyday life with water burn diseases. They only get water during the rainy season collecting rain drop.

By the support of ACTION AID, Bangladesh BITA started development work at 29 no, Madarbari ward for changing live of underprivileged slum dwellers after the terrible cyclone of 1991. Under the project EWASC (Empowerment Women Adolescent for Social Change) intervention building women circle is one of the major initiatives. Community potential women were consisting in the circle. The circle members capacitated on communication, planning and rights based contemporary issues support by the project. As intervention part of women circle’s annual planning of SRB Jui Circle; prioritized the issue of initiatives of solving the water problem in the area. The Circle placed the issue to ward level meeting & authority given importance of the issue. Later on Jui women circle communicates with relevant service provider & February’16 authority ensured the water supply from WASA for the slum community establishing water supply channel support by DSK.

The garment workers & children are now going to destination in time. Different types of water burn diseases are getting low. This was a remarkable initiative by the Jui Women Circle and inspired to rest 3 of Women Circle under the project to do something special for social change.

BITA inaugurated a mass awareness

campaign program on prevention of GBV

in CHT

BITA is inaugurated a project of “Mass awareness Raising

program on prevention of Gender based Violence in The Chittagong

Hill Tracts (CHT)” since May 2016. The major objectives of the

campaign intervention are to changes in attitude and belief in women

and men that perpetuate social acceptance of GBV and disseminate

information about the govt. and non govt. legal aid and other necessary

services at the district, Upazilla and community level by using

approaches for mass attitudinal change to end VAW. The major

interventions of the campaign are cultural campaign of Theatre &

puppet, film festivals, sharing meeting with relevant stakeholders,

capacity development initiatives with local youth, women and

adolescent girls on easy theatre making & Marshal Art, creating service

linkage & distributing BCC materials etc. The working areas of the

intervention are 6 (six) Upazillas in 3 (three) of Hill Districts. The

program is supported by Chittagong Hill Tracks Development facility-

UNDP.

Community score cards process initiated by SEBA (Social Engagement for

Budgetary Accountability) project to assess the performance of Union Parishads focusing LGSP and find out action-steps for service improvements and participatory local development. The community-driven process has continued till interface meeting followed by community action plan display. The process consists of major steps: 1. Preparatory work 2. Input Tracking 3. Performance Score Card 4. Self-Assessment Score Card 5. Interface Meeting 6. Follow up. Input tracking done collecting useful and adequate information separately of 9 UPs’ resources and materials, status of budget and tax collection, schemes, training received, etc. Through performance score cards common people put their score determining indicators, causes against score and recommendations for improvements. Totally 18 FGDs held with 441 people of targeted 9 unions including Baralia, Kusumpura, Kolagaon, Bhatikhain, Ashiya, Kasiaish, Haidgaon, Kelishahar, Kachuai under Patiya upazila in Chittagong district . In the same way, 9 no of self-assessment score cards held through FGDs with the participation of 97 UP representatives and officials. At the final stage, common people and UP representatives sit together, present the findings of input tracking & FGDs, shared views & opinions and formulate action plan as per their recommendations. The meetings created opportunity of open discussion over resources and services of UPs and raise demands by common people to the UP representatives. They appreciated such accountability-mode events at the union level. A total of 9 interface meetings held with the participation of around 900 people (male 600, female 300) common people, UP representatives, service providers, civil society people, government officials, NGO people, community support group members, etc. Among others, District Facilitator, LGSP-II, Chittagong, Md. Anamul Hoque Khondaker and Patiya Upazila Women Affairs Officer Atiya Chowdhury were present as honorable guests in the events. It’s noted that later follow up exercise will be held to measure the implementation progress of community action plan and determine next corrective measures.

Expanded Citizen-UP connectivity to improve local governance

Observing World Theatre Day 2016 jointly with BITA & AFC

Making World Theatre Day 2016,

Bangladesh Institute of Theatre Arts

(BITA) and AFC (Alliance Françoise de

Chittagong) jointly organized a seminar

titled “Practicing Mother Tongue and

Development Theatre: Context

Bangladesh” on Sunday 27 March

2016 at the auditorium of Alliance

Françoise de Chittagong. Chief

discussant at the seminar Dr.Biswajit

Ghosh, professor of Bangali

Department of Dhaka University said,

“We are pleased to speak English

fluently but are reluctant to speak

Bangla correctly. Chittagong University

Dramatics Department teacher Dr. Irin

Sultana read out the keynote paper on

the theme. As chief guest Chittagong

University Vice Chancellor (VC)

professor Iftekhar said,” Practicing the

mother tongue played a major role in

the Cultural Revolution of China and

the French revolution. The language

movement in our country was the

precursor of our Liberation war. So we

all have to commit ourselves to using

our mother tongue well in every

sphere of life. The seminar was also

addressed by AFC Director Raphael

Jaeger, CU Dramatices Department’s

Chairman Ashim Das, BITA executive

director Sisir Dutta and AFC deputy

director Dr. Gurupada Chakrabortty.

Jean-Pierre PONCET, Honorable Deputy Head of

Mission, Embassy of France in Bangladesh said,”

BITA grassroots cultural intervention is well-

timed & important initiatives. He visited BITA

grassroots intervention on 13 February 2016 at

Patiya. He observed BITA campaign theatre

intervention on safe migration issue and

campaign theatre process. An experience

sharing meeting is held with BITA theatre team

members. PONCET also visited BITA Culture and

Communication Trust (BCCT) and observed

preservation centre of traditional folk musical

instrument. AFC Director Raphael Jaeger and

deputy director Dr. Gurupada Chakrabortty also

present with him. BITA executive director Sisir

Dutta welcomed to the guest.

Honorable Director of Goethe-Institut Philip

kueppers visited BITA culture and communication

Trust (BCCT) on 2 March 2016. He observed BITA

theatre process & BITA puppet theatre team

present a puppet theatre performance of “The

Brave Little tailor” based on environment & water

issues. Philip Kueppers said that the working

relation between Goethe-Institut and BITA will be

steady for creating mass awareness on Climate

Change issue. Mr. Christin Zurpel, Third Secretary,

Culture and Press Section, Embassy of Federal

Republic of Germany, Dhaka also participated in

the visit. The guests also visited preservation

centre of traditional folk musical instrument as

well.

BITA grassroots

cultural intervention

is well-timed

initiatives

The relation

between Goethe-

Institut and BITA

will be steady

creating mass

awareness on

Climate Change

Impact

Creating instrumental music fusion jointly with Bangladeshi & France artist

BITA’s participant attended international seminar

22 June 2016 a musical fusion workshop is held at BITA Culture & Communication Trust (BCCT). A group of musical artists of Bangladesh & one musical artist & singer jointly created some of music pieces in the workshop. Marion Sheila French artist came from France by the assistance of Alliance Françoise de Chittagong. The workshop is designed of sharing traditional & folk musical piece of both Bangladesh & France, individual instrumental playing, sharing of experiences & learning, creating fusion among artists and determining area of future intervention. There are 5 renowned & grassroots musical artists from Chittagong attended in the workshop. As learning on Bangladeshi music Marion Sheila said that the music of Bangladesh especially traditional folk music is so melodies & touchy. She would like to revisit Bangladesh for long time & intent to learn Bangladeshi music more. She also impressed to observe preservation centre of traditional folk musical instrument at BCCT premises.

TCI-Asia (Transforming

Community Inclusion) is a regional advocacy platform for people with psycho-social disabilities to develop a common vision for pedagogy and practice related to UNCHPD article 19 (among other related CRPD articles). As HR organization BITA highly respect to achieve the purposes of TCI-Asia & expect to develop an effective advocacy platform in Bangladesh. TCI-Asia is working through workshop, research, capacity building and advocacy activities with respect to laws, policies and institutional relationship in the region to have outcome of capacity building on inclusion of persons with psycho-social disabilities. This year TCI plenary meeting & workshop on Convention on Rights of persons with psychosocial disability (UNCRPD) is held from 29 February to 4 March at Bangkok, Thailand. In the intervention the issues are discussed on Crisis Management, Social Interaction, Peer Support, Supported decision making, Alternatives, Independent living, Accessible housing, Livelihood, Finance etc. Pradip Acharjee from Bangladesh attended in the meeting. He is a senior program staff of BITA. Here in Bangladesh BITA is working for creating institutional relationship, advocacy platform and institutional capacity on alternatives as community services on psycho-social disabilities. About 30 of participants attended the events from 13 of countries in Asia.

National Adivasi Alliance India representatives

visited BITA

A group members of National Adivasi Alliance

(NAA) Eastern Zone representatives in India

visited BITA on 3 March to 5 March 2016. The

representative team members were chief of

different Adivasi organizations in Urisha, India.

During their visit they visited BCCT (BITA Culture

& Communication Trust), observing BITA

program & cultural intervention in community,

process of BITA campaign theatre intervention,

learning sharing session with indigenous

community peoples of Chittagong Hill Districts,

meeting with BITA grassroots theatre group and

presentation of theatre and documentary.

Among the discussion the overall straggle both

in Bangladesh & India are land rights issue,

deforestation, Climate change and agriculture,

education etc in indigenous geography. Ms.

Sabitri Patra, Mr. Satyanarayan Pattanayak, Mr.

Keshaw Ram Shori and Mr. Subodh Pattanayak

attended in the visit from NAA. All the relevant

wishes to increase the learning sharing among

the groups could crate innovative ideas of

program intervention.

A footstep towards women empowerment

BITA puts a lot of emphasis on gender, women rights, and women empowerment in the implementation

of its action plan. There is a certain process in which women take part in different activities of BITA. This is called women circle. As an implementing partner of BRAC, BITA is implementing this women circle activities under the project named Safe Migration for Bangladeshi Workers’ Innovation Fund financed by BRAC in seven unions named Kharna, Kochuayai, Chanhara, Vatikhain, South Vurshi, Kelishohor and Haidgaon of Paitya upazila of Chittagong district.

Women circle works as a learning hub where women having identical socio-economic background gather regularly in a designated place of their neighbourhood. Every women circle consists of 30 participants whose ages range from 17 to 45 years.

Generally participants take part in group discussions. One facilitator facilitates the whole discussion. These participants take part in the group discussion of the women circle in every 15 days. The discussion mainly centers around safe migration, human trafficking and women rights etc. and it usually lasts approximately one hour. The discussion leads to indentifying the reasons responsible for unsafe migration and to devising and analyzing ways to overcome the problem.

Besides, the participants also share their known information with other organizations, local elected representatives of the concerned union parishad. The participants of the women circle tend to increase their active participation in the union parishad while exchanging their information. The women circles mainly organize the under-privileged and destitute women so that an awareness of their rights can be raised. The women circles also make sure that the grass-root level women are enthusiastic enough to know the correct information of immigration before they leave their country. The participants of women circle of Chanhara union of Patiya Upazilla came to know about the visa verification process at BRAC centre when they had attended one women circle meeting. They also shared the vital information among their relatives, neighbours, and peers. Thus, they discuss and exercise the practical issues of safe migration actively.

At the same time, women circles play a pivotal role in identifying the victims of unsafe migration who have returned home, and in selecting and finalizing their participation in the income generating trainings of the project. Furthermore, the family members of the victims of unsafe migration discuss different issues related to their experiences. As a result of this meeting, participants seriously come to know about the essential and accurate processes which are much needed for safe migration. The participants also know how to send and receive remittance in these discussions. This is how women circles are engaged in creating a more aware bunch of participants.

Women circle

Date of publication: 18 August 2016

Compose & Design: Pradip Acharjee, Coordinator, & Mrityunjoy Sengupta , Senior Admin Officer, BITA

Contact Person Sisir Dutta, Executive Director, Bangladesh Institute of Theatre Arts (BITA) E-mail: sisir_bita@yahoo.com; Cell No: +88- 01711-845996

Mousumi Chowdhury, Director Policy & Collaboration Bangladesh Institute of Theatre Arts (BITA) E-mail: mousumi_priyota@yahoo.com ; Cell No: +88 -01817-297524

The publication tries to reflect the initiative of BITA with community.

The contents of this publication are sole responsibility of BITA

Bangladesh Institute of Theatre Arts (BITA) 753 Mehedibag, Chittagong, Bangladesh

Tell: +88-031-618562 ; +88-01711-845996 Fax No: +88-031-610262

E-mail: bitactg@gmail.com

www.bitactg.org

Upcoming events

Campaign Theatre on irregular Migration

Campaign Theatre & cultural intervention on prevention of Gender based Violence in CHT.

Campaign Theatre on safe Migration

Facilitate TiE (Theatre in Education) process at Schools

Conduct community score card

Conduct Household based digester preparedness plan for oldest people’s family.