Sarah Barnett – UK Project Manager – Monitoring & EvaluationAdviser – Bangladesh

Sarah Barnett left her job in the City of London to work as an Monitoring & Evaluation adviser in Bangladesh. Rupantar is an NGO based in Khulna City in the South West and its objective is to raise awareness of social issues, such as domestic violence, local governance, and environmental conservation amongst poor and marginalised people throughout the region.

Using traditional folk entertainment to raise awareness
Rupantar is an NGO based in Khulna City in South West Bangladesh. Rupantar’s objective is to raise awareness of social issues, such as domestic violence, local governance, and environmental conservation. It does this through performances of traditional folk entertainment, known as Pot Songs. Pot Songs use singing, dancing and painted canvasses to tell stories, which mean they can be understand by everyone, including those who are deaf, blind or illiterate.

From this base of understanding Rupantar supports poor communities further by running training sessions in areas such as women’s rights and helping to establish and run Citizens Forums, which are community groups that liaise with local government to make sure public services, such as street cleaning and electricity, are provided.

What this education means community members
Twenty two year old Laizu Akhatur, who lives in an urban slum area on a disused railway line in Khulna City, is just one of the many women whose life has been improved through the work of Rupantar. Married at a young age, her husband offered her little support and their frequent arguments were making her home life very miserable.

“I was not aware of women’s rights but I took part in some gender training and from this I understood that there are no differences between men and women. In my household, my husband never used to help me but I told him about my training and after this he respected the idea and helped me. He has given me a lot of freedom and encourages me to participate in the community and speak with the members of the Citizens Forum. It has benefited me in ways that I could never have dreamt of.”

Sarah’s support for Rupantar
While the impact Rupantar is having on the lives of thousands of individuals is significant, weak management systems meant that there was much more it could have been doing. Although based in the South West it operates in 61 out of 64 districts of Bangladesh, so effective monitoring and evaluation systems so that staff around the country can learn from each other’s activities and experience are vital.

VSO volunteer Sarah Barnett is working as an M&E and Documentation Adviser at the head office, supporting her local colleagues to develop systems and processes that enable them to more efficiently share information, so that ultimately more people like Laizu can benefit from the organisation’s expertise and training.

Sarah used to work for Barclays in the City of London, managing international projects that often incorporated some 50,000 staff. Talking about how she approached her placement she says, “The skills that I brought with me from the UK have helped me enormously in Bangladesh, they’re transferable skills. When I arrived in Rupantar I positioned myself with the members of staff, I said ‘you are the experts in Bangladesh, you are the experts in governance work, you are the experts in NGO work, I’m not. I learn these things from you and I can then teach you about monitoring and evaluation, documentation and communication and management skills’”.

IMPACT

  • Improved understanding of rights amongst poor people in rural and slum communities
  • More effective sharing of knowledge within Rupantar