Friendship, a value-based organization run by compassion, in-depth knowledge, empathy and grassroots experience, has been working for the last 18 years to help address the needs of remote and marginalized communities in Bangladesh, i.e. mostly those people living in the northern river islands and southern coastal belt locations. The organization delivers services in six sectors interacting with each other: Health, Education, Climate Action, Inclusive Citizenship, Sustainable Economic Development, and Cultural Preservation. The organization, which started in 2002 with just a floating hospital serving only ten thousand patients is now providing healthcare and other development solutions to more than 6.5 million people a year. With an integrated development approach, Friendship is nurturing opportunity, dignity and hope by strengthening communities and allowing their members to reach their full potential.
Due to the remoteness of the char communities, there is a lack of information on social factors (women empowerment, child rights, early marriage, etc.), legal education and initiatives from government and legal aid organizations. Some of the key problems in terms of Governance in the char areas are people’s lack of knowledge about the Government structures and services, the sociocultural environment in relations to the informal justice system and the lack of knowledge regarding the State law and legal rights. In addition, like other regions, the locations covered by Friendship’s Inclusive Citizenship program have been severely impacted by COVID-19 outbreak, with people losing jobs and rate of early marriage increasing, at least to some extent.
The Inclusive Citizenship program of Friendship is currently being operated in 105 chars (riverine islands), reaching out to 315,000 char dwellers. The goal of the program is “To create an enabling environment where citizens are ensured access to justice and services from government institutions and are aware of their rights and how to access those rights as citizens”.
Friendship is inviting proposals from experienced research firms/ consulting firms/ academic institutes for an Independent Evaluation of Friendship’s Inclusive Citizenship Program. For detailed Terms of Reference (ToR), please click the link.
Submission of Proposal
The interested candidates will have to submit a narrative proposal of no more than five pages and a financial proposal, on or before January 27th, 2021. The candidates will also have to annex the bios/CVs of the core team members who will lead and be actively involved in the project, if awarded. The entire application pack needs to be sent to partnership@friendship.ngo |