Educating the future workforce

IUBAT nursing students with visiting faculty volunteers

In a recent article in Foreign Affairs, Nicholas Eberstadt writes, “In the foreseeable future, many poorer countries will have to contend with the needs of an aged society even though their workers are far less productive than those in wealthier countries. Consider Bangladesh: a poor country today that will be an elderly society tomorrow, with over 13 percent of its 2050 population projected to be seniors. The backbone of the Bangladeshi labor force in 2050 will be today’s youth. But standardized tests show that five in six members of this group fail to meet even the very lowest international skill standards deemed necessary for participation in a modern economy: the overwhelming majority of this rising cohort cannot ‘read and answer basic questions’ or ‘add, subtract, and round whole numbers and decimals.’”

We have written frequently about BHP efforts to tackle this problem, including our delivery of free pre-school and primary education in a rural village; advocacy for meaningful, national-level student assessments, and BHP Director John Richards’ book on education in South Asia. As a tiny organization, however, BHP has only limited impact. We are hopeful that the education reform group now making recommendations to the interim government in Bangladesh will be able to achieve more substantial change.

Caring about the “care economy”

Sajida HCW training - "What does it feel like to be fed by someone else?"

“Care is what makes all other jobs possible, as it encompasses relationships, services and both paid and unpaid work that make lives possible,” according to a recent report by the World Economic Forum. “Individual employees can work because children, older adults and their loved ones in need of care are being cared for. If this care work did not take place, it would be virtually impossible to be employed outside the home. Not only is care indispensable for the rest of the economy to work, care work in and of itself is an untapped source of employment which is growing. Investing in care creates jobs.”

A major focus of BHP activities is education of health care workers [HCW] in Bangladesh. HCW shortage is a problem locally and globally, but an even greater problem is the shortage of educators. From our initial work to help develop the College of Nursing at IUBAT, we now focus on training of trainers. This includes developing open education resources in collaboration with Nurses International, training trainers of care aides for the elder care program at Sajida Foundation, supporting IUBAT alumni for higher education, developing a Master of Public Health program at IUBAT as a career pathway for HCW, and most recently, recruiting volunteer trainers for Sajida Foundation mental health programs.

Delivering health care with OfP

During a February visit to Balagram, BHP Directors John Richards and Alex Berland met with village residents to discuss their health care concerns. We learned that people with chronic illness were traveling long distances for medical care because local health care clinics were understaffed and sometimes unfriendly to poor patients. We asked OFP to explore ways to strengthen linkages with capable local GPs concerned about disadvantaged communities. We also requested OFP to arrange a specialist referral for a young woman with cerebral palsy symptoms whose family brought her to meet us. BHP funds some of the travel and accommodation costs to attend these specialist consultations as well as treatment costs for assessments and simple surgeries such as cataract repair.

The chronic illness (NCD) screening clinic is always well-attended

Our weekly chronic illness screening program continues in the clinic offices in the OIST building, using student volunteers. For three months in spring a local paramedic was also available, so he and an OIST student visited residents in their homes to screen for hyper-tension and diabetes. We used BHP health program funds to pay for the paramedic salary (about $350 CAD for  three months) and paid for a computer to maintain patient files in the clinic. We also asked OFP to improve access to good-quality health promotion videos and paid for a large-screen TV for the primary school.

If you would like to support these programs, you can donate here or for more information, please contact us.