RDRS

RDRS (Rangpur-Dinajpur Rural Society) set up by Lutheran World Federation in 1971 to help in the rehabilitation of refugees returning home after the war of liberation. Later, the operations of RDRS were shifted from refugee and infrastructural rehabilitation to general development. In 1976, it organised its work into a sectoral development programme. The sectors were construction, agriculture, health, community and women's development, economic activities, and emergency work. In 1988, RDRS brought all its activities (excepting leprosy and mother and child health projects of its Community Health Units) under two umbrellas. The first was the Comprehensive Project, which stressed social, economic and educational advancement through awareness building, literacy and skills' training and microcredit for income generating activities, both off and on the farm. The second umbrella was the Rural Works Project that covered physical infrastructure and the environment. Working towards the latter, RDRS developed roadside and homestead tree plantation schemes, which significantly changed the desolate and bare landscape. For greening the northwest, RDRS won many awards.
Alongside its core development project and experimental bilateral projects, RDRS stands ready to respond to emergencies and disasters in its working area and elsewhere. In 1988, RDRS spread its activities into the isolated sandbars of the river brahmaputra. The Char (alluvium) Development Project remains one of RDRS success stories.
The organisation began its work in the remote and physically isolated northwestern corner of the country. Since inception, it has worked extensively and intensively in the very poor and backward rural areas of the Rangpur and Dinajpur districts. The region remained ignored by the commercial hub and political centres of the big cities and was highly underdeveloped. RDRS programmes put a greater emphasis on improving education for children and adults, creating awareness on primary healthcare and decreasing infant and maternal mortality rates, raising awareness of social issues, introducing the idea of women's development, and backing up increased credit provision with relevant skills' training.
In 2001, RDRS worked in 29 upazilas of Rangpur and Dinajpur zones covering 15 upazilas of the districts of Panchagarh, Thakurgaon, Nilphamari and Pirganj and 14 upazilas of Lalmonirhat and Kurigram districts and the char (alluvium) areas of Nageswari. The head office of RDRS is located in Dhaka but the main field headquarters are in Rangpur town. RDRS facilitates the rural poor and their organisations to build their capacity and confidence to advance empowerment and promote opportunities, awareness and access to development resources. It promotes partnership with the organised poor and other civil society actors to advocate for greater justice and opportunity for the disempowered and to advance their self-reliant development.
The distinctive characteristics of RDRS and its approach include intensive geographic focus and concentration, integrated and multidisciplinary programmes, relatively participatory management style and shared responsibility, experience and continuing capacity to learn, and to adapt and building sustainable peoples' institutions of, by and for the rural poor. The RDRS programmes focus on grassroots involvement through incorporating members of disadvantaged households (landless and marginal farmers) into 15-20 member primary groups. RDRS defines a disadvantaged household as one owning less than 1.5 acres of land or one whose earning members are forced to sell labour for more than 90 days per year for sustaining the family. Only one adult member aged 18- 45 from each defined disadvantaged household may become a member of RDRS groups.
Types of interventions by RDRS in their development efforts include institution building, creating social awareness, economic promotion and civic engagement. Micro finance is also a component of the organisation's programmes but RDRS considers that micro finance is a means to an end, just one tool for development, and not an end in itself. RDRS decided that it would separate micro-finance from its social and environmental sectors. RDRS also opted to alter its approach to social mobilisation. The focus in the past had been on developing the 'poorest of the poor' at the grassroots. But this had not proved cost-effective, especially as it required an extensive network of field workers. Under a new strategy, RDRS focuses on the community level for discussion and works on all social, educational and health issues to create a greater impact on the community as a whole, not just on RDRS beneficiaries.
RDRS operates with an estimated annual budget of $7.5 million and its programme coverage is approximately 1.5 million beneficiaries (63% women) of about 300,000 households.