DESHA's Story

DESHA is a non-profit Non-Government Organization established in the year of 1986 for the socio-economic upliftment of the poor and landless people of the area. The Organization, since its inception, has been working for institution building of the poor with special emphasis on distressed women, girls and disadvantaged children. Main thrust of DESHA’s program is to organize the poor and underprivileged people into groups in order to enable them to develop leadership, manage and control for themselves as well as identify their problems and find out solutions. At the time of its inception, the socio-economic situation of DESHA’s working area was very backward. Endless poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, illiteracy, absence of major population from social decision making process and resource constraints were some major problems in the area. There existed great inequalities in the land, income distribution, education and control over production resources among the poor and rich. Women constitute half of the total population of poorer section are still underprivileged, illiterate and ignorant much more than their male counterpart. Prejudice, lack of awareness, little scope of training and income-earning opportunities and above all no access to social decision making process were the major constraints which made them dependent on others. Women had a little scope of earning independently although they had great potentialities to undertake income generation activities. DESHA received its registration from Department of Social Service in 1989 and began field level implementation of its development programs in 1996. With a very limited resources, DESHA started its operation in 17 villages of Mirpur upazila under the district of Kushtia. From the outset, DESHA began with and still follows target group approach while working among the disadvantaged rural poor household consisting of land less and manual laborers, ethnic, minorities and others vulnerable people. Over the years, DESHA has gradually expanded its working area through a strategically defined plan. A Short Profile of DESHA DESHA has traveled a long and struggling way to reach the present status. DESHA has achieved hard fought success in multi-sectoral development activities during this period of time. The commitment, skill and experience have strengthened its capacity to expand development interventions from local to national level.