Institute of Integrated Rural Development (IIRD)

Community

IIRD currently has six project sites in five counties: Bogra, Chandpur, Netrokona, Kishoreganj, and Tangai and plans to start four more projects in 2005 in these counties.

IIRD works in 849 villages with more than 60,000 poor families. Among them are the hard-core poor who suffer serious food deficiency; the very poor with some food deficiency; the less poor who can subsist but who are without basic healthcare, education, and shelter; and those families nearing the point of meeting their basic nutritional requirements and providing for other essential needs.

IIRD - Dedicated to the Women of Bangladesh

IIRD's development work emphasizes the participation of women in planning and implementation of all programs, particularly in sericulture, afforestation, credit, and education where 100 percent of the development partners are women.

In the education program, for example, only women are hired as teachers and education supervisors and 60% of the students enrolled in the Feeder Schools are girls. The eight-member School Management Committees consist of mothers who meet weekly and all the students' mothers meet once per month for a discussion meeting.

In the sericulture program, for example, women are the sole development partners at every stage of the production process. The tree caretakers, the silkworm rearers, the silk extraction, and the dying and weaving are all performed by women. IIRD also administers rural cottage industries for poor women in chalk-making, tailoring, embroidery, and the production of leather goods.