BHAGNI
NIVEDITA MANCHYA (BNM) as a women headed non-profit,
non-governmental Human Rights and Development organization came into existence
at Keshabpur upazila in Jessore district on 09 October, 1992 to act as a legal resource centre for women,
children and vulnerable groups of community as well as to promote disaster risk
reduction initiatives for social justice and development. A woman lawyer, the
present executive director Ms. Ratna Chandra, who used to know the grievances
of tortured, neglected, illegally divorced and helpless women and their
children and voluntarily provide legal aid support those who were unable to pay
any cost for that, initiated the organization with the assistance of a senior
lawyer of Jessore Judge Court and the inspiration of a catholic priest Father
Luigi paggi, a renown social and religious activist, in Bangladesh for over 20
years. After its coming into existence
to meet the needs of the poor, vulnerable sections of the communities specially
for women and children to fulfil their needs, currently BNM has been
extended its programs in 783
villages of 58 Unions under 12 Upazillas of Jessore, Khulna, Bagerhat and
Satkhira Districts and it has 129 staffs where as 60 males and 69 females have been working covering most of
the Upazillas. Along side its right based approach of service delivery, the
organization recently incorporated need based services like health,
agriculture, aquaculture, livestock, forestry, environment & natural
resource management, bio-diversity conservation, disaster management,
socio-economic development, nutrition & hygiene education, water and
sanitation, HIV/AIDS, rural development, awareness raising and arsenic
mitigation etc. Now BNM has emerged as a frontline local human right NGO in the
south-western part of Bangladesh
with both right and need based development services.
BNM is fully devoted to assist the poor to rise out of the vicious
cycle of poverty. It is the recipient of the donation from different national
and international agencies to operate multifarious development activities
including microfinance activities. It is the members of different national,
regional and local issue based development networks and associations to
integrate, share and avoid the duplication of development interventions taken
by different agencies in its working area. BNM is a partner of Department of
Non-Formal Education (DNFE) and Bureau of Non-Formal Education (BNFE), OPAM,
Manitese, BROT FUR DIE WELT, CCDB from
1993 and has been implementing different education programs in different
south-western parts of Bangladesh.
