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Strengthening Capacity for SBCC: BKMI Lessons Learned held

A dissemination event on Strengthening Capacity for SBCC: BKMI Lessons Learned was held on 17th October 2016 at CIRDAP International Conference Center.

In the event BKMI’s SBCC activities and lessons learned for 3 years in HPN sector was shared.  BKMI capacity strengthening framework functioned in three levels – Individual, Organization and System.

As BKMI works closely with three communication units of MoHFW- IEM, BHE and IPHN - representatives from the units shared their activities.   Ms Sharifa Begum, Chief BHE and Line Director, HEP,DGHS shared about SBCC Tools and Resources for the Individual level. Dr. Md. Moudud Hossain, Deputy Director, DGHS & Program Manager, NNS shared about SBCC Tools and Resources for the Organizational level. Md Ferdous Alam, Joint Secretary and Director, IEM, DGFP shared about SBCC Tools and Resources for the System level.

Ms Nilima Sharmin, family welfare assistant, DGFP Comilla and Ms Huraine Fahmida Zeny, health assistant, DGHS Chittagong shared their field level experience about using HPN  eToolkit for field workers and eLearning courses.

Mr Shahadat Mollah, health inspector from DGHS Manikganj and Mr Shaheen Alam, family planning inspector from DGFP Munshigonj shared their experience of using Monitoring & Evaluation Checklist for SBCC supervision.

Dr AZM Zahidur Rahman and Ms Saiqa Siraj members of the Bangladesh BCC Working Group shared their experience about BCC Working Group and Safollo Gatha event.

The event was chaired by Ms Roxana Quader, Additional Secretary (PH & WH), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

In the event the Chair shared different successes of health sector and mentioned that leadership should not be only from ministry level. Our work is in field level so frontline workers need to play import roles here. Everyone should provide new idea about how to implement different strategies. We need to strengthen the IEC Technical Committee.  She also mentioned that we need to have collective decision on the recommendation to develop joint action plan for three units of DGHS and DGFP and on sustainability of the BCC Working Group and HPN Coordination Committee. For this purpose we need to sit together.  The M & E checklist needs to be scaled up in whole country.  We need to plan what needs to be done in near future.  She thanked BKMI & USAID for their support. She mentioned that we need support from all and need to work together.

In the event the Chief Guest was  Mr Mohammad Wahid Hossain, Director General, DGFP and Special Guest was  Dr Md Ehteshamul Huq Choudhury, Additional Director General (Admin), DGHS.

Mr Mohammad Wahid Hossain, Director General, DGFP thanked Rebecca Arnold, Project Director of BKMI and her Team for the last 3 years achievement. He also thanked them for developing an effective M & E Checklist and facilitating the use of that in field level. Behavior is one the complex activity among different activities. In different levels behavior change is challenging job. This is a continuous process, it never ends. Field workers are doing this for 40 years.  Our achievement in the health sector is mostly the contribution of front level workers.  Field workers earlier provided messages for one issue, now they are sharing collective information. The behavior of field worker has changed and they are changing the behavior of people.  Through BKMI we have desired changes at levels. Frontline workers are the change managers, we are trying to empower and train through them using eToolkit and eLearning.  He thanked USAID, BKMI, Johns Hopkins and other organizations. He hoped in next sector program this issue would get priority. It is difficult to quantify behavior change but it helps to change other different issues. We need more budget allocation in SBCC by considering impact in all sectors.

Dr Md Ehteshamul Huq Choudhury, Additional Director General (Admn.), DGHS mentioned that the achievement in health sector of Bangladesh is well known.  We are proud to be a part of this. We faced many challenges; we had to fight for this achievement. SDG and Community health is in front of us. We need to work together with government, non government, development partners and all other stakeholders to achieve SDGs.

He further mentioned BKMI brought a change in our health system.  He thanked BKMI for their support. He also thanked the front line works for their efforts.  From the dialogue of front line workers it seems that BKMI is successful. To achieve the SDG we need to work for personal capacity strengthening, organizational capacity strengthening and at other levels.   We have to keep up the activities BKMI did.  Next time BKMI or anyone who will do this type of activity we need to cooperate.  We also need to make our workplace safe and have to ensure good environment. Government need support suggestion and cooperation of all in this issue.  He said that he is sure that we will be successful to implement the SDGs.  He urged that everyone should take care for their own responsibility.

There was open discussion session and participants shared their thoughts about the BKMI project activities.

More than 100 professionals from government, nongovernment organizations, development partners, media and academic attended the event. Government representatives were from BHE, IPHN, IEM, NIPORT, IEDCR, UPHCSDP. There were representatives from BBC Media, Plan International, MSH, Asiatic, Dnet, BCCP, HASAB, SMC, BBF, WaterAid, IPAS, Save the Children, SIAPS, NHSDP, IFPRI and BKMI. UNICEF and USAID from development partners were there.

There were also representatives from media and University level. From Media there were BTV, Bangla Vision, New Age, Bangladesh Beter. There were also representatives from State University of Bangladesh and Green University.