Project Description:

The Situational Analysis study was conducted from January to July 2017 in Bakerganj and Muladi Upazilas under Barisal district. The overall objective of the study was to help Save the Children in Bangladesh to identify priority challenges and their underlying causes, as well as existing and potential resources in the community to ensure that the program activities are well-targeted. The study adopted a mixed-method approach to analyze five components namely Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD), School Health and Nutrition (SHN), Basic Education (BE), Overview of the Maternal Newborn Child Health and Nutrition (MNCHN) and Adolescent Development (AD). The findings of the study suggest that a significant portion of the population in Bakerganj was deprived of Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) facilities. The study also found that though there were an adequate number of primary schools in Muladi and Bakerganj Upazilas, but the quality of education was yet to be satisfactory. Moreover, the School Management Committees (SMCs) were not active and there was no Parent Teacher Association (PTA) in those schools. Findings of the study show that although separate toilet facilities for men, women, boys, girls and children with disabilities were provided by the WASH block but those were not in the best of their conditions due to lack of maintenance. Study found irregular supply of essentials logistics, medicine for child delivery, contraceptive measures such as contraceptive pill, IUD in more than 50 percent community clinics and the services were not provided on a regular basis. The study concluded that from each aspect, the study areas were suffering from lack of resources to enjoy a quality life. Although there were establishments to provide the services but quality of the services were not up to the expected level. Besides, often maintenance of available resources had been found to be a challenging aspect. Thus, awareness-raising programs, targeting education, heath, child protection and child right will be needed to make sure the utilization of available resources and services. In addition, resources will have to be increased to cover all the communities.