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Sandra
M. Kabir
Founder President and
Special Advisor, BWHC
London
I was working as a programme officer with the South West Asia Regional Office of Family Planning International Assistance. The office was located in Dhaka and the organisation was a conduit for USAID funds to family planning NGOs in the region. A breakthrough had occurred in my career thanks to the wise judgement of Tony Drexler.
I decided to leave FPIA because of the USAID policy on not funding abortion or abortion-related activities. This was in 1979. Perchance I had met Merle Goldberg at the Ford Foundation guesthouse. From the first time we met she and I became fast friends. Over the years she was like a mother, elder sister and friend to me in all aspects of my life. Merle was the godmother of my youngest daughter, Saeqah, whom she got to meet only once some months before Merle's death from cancer. It was Merle who prompted me to set up safe menstrual regulation* services for women in the light of USAID policy. When she first broached the subject, I was neither ready in terms of courage and determination to undertake such an endeavour nor to take on the financial uncertainty. However, experiencing at first hand the impact of the USAID policy, through my position at FPIA, I became increasingly outraged and decided to take the challenge.
I set up office in 1979 at a broken wooden table in my bedroom and the loan of a battered portable typewriter. This was the heart of the Bangladesh Women's Health Coalition. Concerned Women for Family Development (then CWFP) was one of the NGOs who decided to give up their MR services to ensure continuing USAID funding. I took over their MR unit lock, stock and barrel and set up a clinic across the road from their office/clinic in Kakrail. Staff, furniture, equipment and supplies were transferred and work began.
Merle was the President of the then National Women's Health Coalition in Washington, DC. Hence our name - the Bangladesh Women's Health Coalition. We were not an affiliate, but a sister organisation. The very first funding for BWHC came from the Population Crisis Committee to run for a year. We were expected to be self sufficient in that period !
Our first board consisted of Late Professor Firoza Begum, Late Professor Suraiya Jabeen, Ms. Mufaweza Khan, Advocate Sigma Huda, Ms. Shireen Scheikh, Ms. Reyhana Hussain and I. The board members were always very supportive, extending and sharing their expertise and experience generously.
At that time the registration process for NGOs was tortuous. We had to submit papers to the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) for one registration and to the External Resources Division (ERD) to receive foreign funding. The former process was quite painless. No so for the latter ! I was called for an interview where there were about fifteen government officials from the Ministries of Finance, Education, Health, Agriculture as well as representation from the National Security and Intelligence Agency and the police. There was less interest in the Bangladesh Women's Health Coalition than in me as an individual, i.e. why did I not look Bangladeshi, who was my father, who was my husband, where were they from, etc. I began the interview with apprehension which soon turned to outrage. Even after the gruelling questions we were not given our registration, but had to answer many more questions through subsequent meetings and correspondence. Eventually BWHC had both the DSW and ERD registrations and became legitimised. All of this processing went on simultaneously to our providing services at the Coalition Dhaka Clinic.
Services at the clinic initially consisted of safe menstrual regulation procedures, with counselling. Most of the clients were referred from Concerned Women for Family Development. They returned there for their contraceptive needs. CWFD could not openly record sending clients to BWHC because of the restrictions of their USAID funding. Of course, we found ways and means of circumventing this. Our organisations had a code so that proper and complete information could be gathered and maintained for each client. We attempted three times to have the official opening of the Coalition Clinic Dhaka. However, the Health Ministers kept being shuffled around. Eventually, Professor Firoza Begum did the honours and we all celebrated with much fun.
The Coalition Clinics Narayanganj and Tangail followed on the heels of the first clinic. Services were expanded on the behest of clients who wanted contraceptives, maternal and child health care, adult literacy classes and income generation. BWHC joined hands with the Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association to provide both legal aid and para legal training to women. Therefore, the clinics became projects providing reproductive health care from the clinic base and women's development support at the community level.
Additional projects similar to the three original endeavours were set up over the years with combinations of services and approaches changing according to the needs of BWHC's clients, in line with government and donors demands and the changing economic/social/political situation in Bangladesh.
It was never my intention to create a large, sprawling organisation. My dream was (and still is) to prove to governments and NGOs the world over that people-centred sexual and reproductive health services, particularly safe menstrual regulation, can be provided efficiently and effectively by indigenous organisations working with other NGOs, CBOs, professional associations, the media, the government and donors. I think we have been successful in doing this.
Finally, I would like to thank all the staff, Executive Committee members, volunteers, like-minded NGOs, donor agencies and the Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh for assisting and supporting the Bangladesh Women's Health Coalition to make it what it is today. I am jubilant that we have not only survived for twenty five gruelling years, but that BWHC is a success and recognised as such, nationally and internationally.
Forward we go together !
Sandra M. Kabir
