Empowering Dalit Women and Girls through

Enhancing their Capacity to Access Entitlements

Implementing Organizations:
 Project objectives
The specific objectives are:
 Strengthening Dalit women leadership capacity to mobilize and
facilitate access to the basic service provision;
 Create awareness on caste discrimination, social exclusion and
vulnerability within Dalit community and among the greater civil
society actors; and
 Advocacy and campaign at local, national and international level to
promote Dalit women and girls rights.
Project Period: 1 Sep’ 2020- 28 Feb’ 2022 (18 Months)

Project Areas & Beneficiaries

District City Colony Targeted

Corporation/Upazilla beneficiaries
Dhaka Dhaka City corporation 15 colonies 32,809

Narayanganj Narayanganj city corporation 10 colonies 4,300

Total 2 city corporations 25 colonies 37,109

COMPLETED TASKS
 Objective-I:
Strengthening Dalit women leadership capacity to mobilize
and facilitate access to the basic service provision
• Trained 25 Dalit women as Dalit Women’s Rights Defenders;
• Formed 25 CBOs at 25 colonies of Dhaka and Narayanganj;
• Provided skill training for 60 Dalit women and girls (sewing and
makeover for occupational diversity);
• 15 of them have already engaged in regular earning and other 20 are
earning irregularly through service based activities;
• Provided scholarship to 10 Dalit female students to pursue higher
education; (Secondary and Higher Secondary level);
• Provided internship opportunities to 5 female Dalit fresh graduates to
develop their professional capacity;
• Three of them have already been employed by other organizations;
Continuation…
• Listed the number of deserving people to get social services (Old age-
535, PWDs-42, Pregnant mothers-126, and Students-490)
• So far Old age-47, PWDs-14, Pregnant mothers-48, and Students-80
have been able to access the basic services.
• The list have been submitted to the authority which is under
consideration to provide the services gradually.
 Objective-II:
Create awareness on caste discrimination, social exclusion and vulnerability
within Dalit community and among the greater civil society actors
• Study conducted to explore gender-based violence (GBV) against
Dalit community and women’s participation in the decision-making
process which was conducted by Bonhishikha;
• Series of meetings (499) have been organized on different issues to
build awareness, such as, Dalit women’s rights, access to civil
documents, access to basic services;
• 5 meetings on Building alliances and networking were organized with
Journalists and Women-led CSOs;
• 1 flyers and 1 flip-chart were published to conduct awareness sessions;
• A street theatre group have been formed by Dalit youths, to make
aware on different issues through performances.
 Objective-III:
Advocacy and campaign at local, national and
international level to promote Dalit women rights
• 10 advocacy meetings have been organized with local elected councilors
and different Government departments, such as: Dept. of Social
Services and Dept. of Women Affairs.
• Two (2) Dalit women assembly have been organized in Dhaka and
Narayanganj where City Mayor, High level Govt. Officials and CSO
Members had attended and made promises to assist Dalit communities
for their development.
• A series of events have been organized to enact the Anti-discriminatory
Act and to reform the proposed bill which was placed in the National
Parliament on the 5th of April 2022.
• Organized a meeting with National Human Rights Commission,
Bangladesh (NHRC, B) to brief them on Dalit women and their
vulnerabilities.
Continuation…
• Representatives from Dalit communities have participated in different
regional and international advocacy meetings, seminars and workshops, such
as:
 Virtual session of World Social Forum organized by Asia Dalit Rights Forum held on
26 January 2021;
 46th Session of UN Human Rights Council on The Impact of Online Caste Hate Speech
organized by International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN) on 22 March 2021;
 Virtual workshop on UN Mechanism –UPR organized by International Dalit Solidarity
Network (IDSN) on 30 June 2021;
 Virtual workshop on Preparation for Strategy workshops: Using the UN for Human
Rights Advocacy for Communities Discriminated on Work and Decent organized by
Global Forum of Communities Discrimination on Work and Decent (GFOD) on 18
May 2022, etc.
 Upscaling the Intervention…
• In the first phase there were 25 colonies.
• In the current phase we have included another 08 more colonies;
• The coverage includes the following communities:
urban sweepers (generally identified as Harijans-08 different sub-castes);

Telegu (engaged in informal sector workers and sweepers);

Rishi/Rabidash (cobbler), Fishermen, Dom (morgue worker);

 Achievements So Far….
• Reaching out most of the colonies in Narayanganj and Dhaka City Corporations
and covering all different communities belong to Dalits.
• Mobilizing women’s groups effectively even after facing challenges (opposition
from Panchayat regarding working with the outside NGOs without their
permission and especially not allowing the women’s to work);
• We have successfully overcome the challenges in the first year of our intervention
and received demand from other areas to expand our activities;
• Breaking the perception and traditional belief that Dalits are unable to explore
beyond the ghetto;
• Started engaging in other occupations after receiving skill training;
Continuation…
• Making them realize the importance of obtaining civil documents (birth
registrations, national ID, death certificate etc.) to establish the citizenship
rights;
• Increased understanding to have access to the entitlements/basic services
provided by the state;
• Established links between Dalit women and girls, and elected councilors, Govt.
officials and other CSOs;
• 30 young Dalit girls have been trained as Dalit Women Rights Defenders, they
emerged as change-agent in the community;
• Overall, a visible change have been observed within the Dalit community.
IEC materials (flip charts & flyers)
Dalit Street Theatre Group Networking with NHRC,B
Training of Dalit Women’s Rights Formation of CBOs in 25 Provided Skill Training to 60
Defenders Colonies Dalit Women and Girls

Awareness Raising Meetings on Study on Prevalence of GBV on

Access to Basic Services Dalit Women and Girls
Scholarship for Dalit Female students

Internship Support for Dalit Female

Graduates
Learning through Exposure Visits
Awareness Meeting on Access to Civil Rights Networking Meeting with Media and Women Organizations

Sensitizing Male Members of Dalit Community on

Advocacy Meeting
Women’s Rights
 Dalit Women’s Assembly

Narayanganj
Dhaka
Thank You