Our Achievements

GUS is implementing different types of activities including humanitarian response for the development of the crisis affected people in Kurigram since 1998 with the financial support from different donors. But GUS was not too much strong as we didn’t have all the policies at organization level, staff were not highly trained, and we were not well connected with different platforms and networks beyond Kurigram district.

Since  2016 GUS got the opportunity to be engaged with the ELNHA project which supported us to build their organizational capacity by providing number of training and workshop to the organization core staff that includesNeed assessment training, CTP local leadership Development Training, Project proposal development training, training on coordination mechanism, training on resource mobilization, CHS training, training on SOD, training on equitable partnership, Gender &safe guard training,Humanitarian advocacy training, training on contingency plan and supported to develop/update contingency plan accordingly, SOP, Disaster Management Plan, develop different policies in the organization such as gender policy, financial policy,  HR policy, safe guard policy,  and so on.

Therefore, the ELNHA project linked us with the different networks, UN clusters and Working Groups in Bangladesh which helps us to be connected with the national humanitarian architecture. Also supported us to be more united at the district level for collaborative humanitarian response.ELNHA project also created opportunity to interact with various government line department, private sector, media, INGOs& donors.

The other lead Actors of ELNHA in Kurigram also received same kind of capacity building opportunity like GUS and build their capacity in Humanitarian sector. We all the lead actors of Kurigram basically develop our capacity building plan through Joint Action Planning. Before the ELNHA project, LNHAs in this district were not too much united and organized in humanitarian works but now a days we are more confident, organized and united in humanitarian response in Kurigram. So, we think GUS is a stronger organization now than it was ago.

Though GUS has started its journey since 1998 but we didn’t have required organizational knowledge, skill and capacity that essentially required for effective humanitarian response. Through the Joint Action Planning workshop, we got the scope to identify our gaps and subsequently worked for that to improve the organization capacity. ELNHA provided us the financial support to develop our capacity by developing/ updating relevant Policy, guidelines, staff training and link us with different platforms and networks which build our level of confidence level. ELNHA also develop our negotiation and bargaining skill and capacity. Earlier, we didn’t have enough resource to invest for organizational capacity building but ELNHA provided us that resource to develop the organization capacity.

The ELNHA project is an exceptional type of project. The diversified the bottom up capacity building approach was very much effective that provided us a space to grow. The joint action planning was a real bottom up capacity building approach that was exceptional compared with other organizations. The lead actors of Kurigram also experienced this new dimension of capacity building approach such as HUCOCA and later Joint action Planning engaging all the districts actors. The systematic capacity building initiative made the ELNHA project unique. ELNHA capacity building provided us the freedom to explore our capacity gaps and invest to improve that gap accordingly. Another uniqueness of the ELNHA capacity building was locally managed HAF which supported us to be more confident in management and coordination aspect. Beside the capacity building, ELNHA project also provided another scope to demonstrate that capacity in to practice level through accessing the HRGF.

The Joint Action Planning provided us the scope to identify our capacity gaps collectively and provided us the scope to work together with other humanitarian actors in the district. HAF fund created an opportunity to work together with other actors. The decentralization of HAF approach increased the district level ownership and leadership. The freedom of choice for the capacity building activities identification under HAF helped the organizations for the improvement of their real laps and gaps, Freedom of choice increase the ownership that contributed future sustainability beyond ELNHA.Improved district level collaboration and coordination that strengthen their collective capacity at the district level.

The back to back training and workshops sometimes created challenges as most of the organizations are small so it was difficult to nominate people for the trainings or workshops. Identification of appropriate resource person for conducting workshop and training was some time challenging. Minimizing the district level power dynamics was challenging. Engagement of the government and private sectors officials in this capacity building initiative. However, it was managed by effective planning in consultation with other lead actors at the district.

                                                        DISASTER RESPONSE (HRGF):