The birth of the Organization may be traced back in the activities of
a local CBO at Bharatkhali of Gaibandha district, one of the remotest
and disaster prone northwestern District of Bangladesh. Geographically,
one of the distinctive features of the district is that out of its total
2179 square km the river the Teesta, the Brahmaputra and the Jamuna
engulf large north to south in the eastern part. The district has about
2.2 million populations. It is heartening to mention that Gaibandha is
one of the extremist disaster prone areas of Bangladesh. Flood is often
common during the monsoon. Reversibly there is prevalence of drought
almost every dry season of the year. Most miseries in the life of the
people is river erosion and this rendered a large number of people
homeless, land-less, assets-less and also in loss of valuable
belongings. River erosion is one of the serious causes of poverty in
this disaster prone district. The number of poverty stricken people is
increasing day by day where the country situation is reverse.
There
is widespread unemployment scenario in the absence of mills and
factories at Gaibandha. Only option for a large number of people is
selling the manual labour mainly in agricultural sector. And when either
crop sowing/plantation of harvesting is over the labour class has
almost nothing to do as their income, other time of the year brings
untold sufferings in their life either starvation or eats far below the
calorie and nutritional requirement. Having no other alternative a large
number of labour class migrate to other potential areas in urban and
wealthy areas. The Socio-Economic story of Gaibandha district does not
end here. Temporary migration for a large number of people creates so
many new problems in their families. The women and the children of the
migrated wage-earning members become more helpless as a result of the
migration of their guardians. Women’s dependence of men in many aspects
of living and livelihood brings scope of male domination on women and
this subdues the women’s voice. Striking social problems in and around
Gaibandha are dowry, polygamy, separation with husband, abandoned wife,
early marriage during childhood, divorce, physical and mental torture on
the wives render the life of women and children miserable.
A group of youth had been involved in various Socio-cultural and
peoples’ welfare program around 1987 and gradually their effort turned
into developmental program. SKS came to development field with small
financing for the poor and small entrepreneurs to save them from the
clutches of small entrepreneurs.
Initial support was given both
in kind and cash. Organized target people were encouraged to savings
from beginning. Within a short time SKS received attention of Oxfam-GB a
western donor agency. A good number of training, technical support and
assistance from them enabled SKS to go ahead professionally. This is how
the SKS progress was made. In 1991 SKS received registration from the
Dept. of social welfare. This local level registration and govt.
recognition strengthened the morale of SKS.
