The NGO Service Delivery Program or NSDP came into being in July 2002, with the aim of making essential health services more readily available to the teeming millions of Bangladesh, with particular focus on marginalized groups. This has been a conspicuously successful collaborative enterprise of eight partners. The communities which a decade ago were indifferent to health issues, are beginning to show greater interest in them and their members are turning up in ever increasing numbers to NSDP's health service delivery centers - the Smiling Sun Clinics. This difficult task has been accomplished in large part by NSDP, with Behavior Change Communication (BCC) support from BCCP.

A number of action-programs undertaken this year generated a huge change in the health behavior of the people of Bangladesh. These included the Health Benefit Card which provides the card holder or members of his/her family with free health counseling and certain free medicines; the BCC and Marketing Toolkit which raises the standard of existing and newly introduced health services, ensuring greater use of these services by the poor; the thirty- minute PLTM Counseling Video which is used to train a counselor who will know how best to satisfy a customer through counseling and at the same time play an important role in extending the clinic's area of activities; a path-breaking NSDP initiative for creating health awareness at the local level through a Music Video introducing  eight different health services delivered by the Smiling Sun Clinics, and a PL TM Motivational Video which aimed to motivate the local community to make use of the services offered by the Smiling Sun Clinics, raise the quality of the services themselves and attract a larger number of customers to the clinics. Topic-based dramas like Enechhi Surjer Hasi were also broadcast to publicize health services in NSDP operational areas.

Distributing 'Smiling Sun' Materials among NSDP's Service Providers

Service providers, field workers and depot-holders play an important role in popularizing essential health services and in making them more accessible in NSDP's operational areas. In order to foster a physical and emotional bond between the customer and the Smiling Sun Clinic and to establish the Smiling Sun as a domestic 'brand' as well, NSDP has made saris and umbrellas carrying the Smiling Sun symbol alongside a variety of BCC materials for its depot-holders, service providers and fieldworkers.

World AIDS Day Observed

As in the previous years, every NSDP NGO observed the annual World AIDS Day on December 01, 2006. This year's slogan was: 'Prevention of AIDS is Our Pledge'. The NSDP NGOs arranged a special discussion meeting at each of its Static Clinics, organized rallies with all the clinic-staff as well as the NGO Headquarters staff participating. Dinajpur Kanchan Samittee, on its part, organized rallies and discussion meetings and staged a streetdrama in observance of the Day. BCCP provided technical support to the NGOs in organizing the event at the local level and in order to create AIDS awareness at all levels.