Qualitative Monitoring of Shiree Interventions: Cms5 Intervention Tracking- Roi (1)

QUALITATIVE MONITORING OF SHIREE INTERVENTIONS: CMS5 INTERVENTION TRACKING

REFLECTIONS ON THE INTERVENTION FOR SALMA HAWLADAR

Shiree Q2 Research on Extreme Poverty in Bangladesh Author Yusra Tabassum Chowdhury Institution Save the Children, Bangladesh CMS1 220164 (Household ID from CMS1) Reference Interviewee Salma Sex Age Ethnicity/Religion name Hawladar Female 12 Bengal Muslim Before the Intervention: End of ROI (1): Nuton Bazar, Lanch ghat, 2 no Union, Nuton Bazar, Lanch Mosharaf Goli, Khulna (22 no word) Upazilla and ghat, 2 no Mosharaf Zilla Goli, Khulna (22 no word) Dates of 21 August 2013 Interview

Before the intervention April 2013 Oct 2010

Well-being Destitute Destitute (also destitute as of August 2013) Status Livelihoods 1.Garbage and paper 1.Garbage and paper collector (rag picker) before and collector (rag picker) 2.Shrimp head cleaning (By Salma’s mother, Salma) after the 2.Shrimp cleaning 3.Day labour in fish depot (Salma’s bother Shahid) intervention

Productive Own slum house (leased Own slum house (leased by the government), tin roof Asset or by the government), tin and brick with 18’X 10’ living space in total. IGA owned roof and brick with 18’X working 10’ living space in total. capital Marital Unmarried, lives with her Unmarried, lives with her parents status and parents household composition Keywords Self-managed family, destitute, deaf father, reproach, extreme vulnerability

INTRODUCTION

This is the first reflection of the intervention of Salma, which follows up on from the previous life history, which was conducted in April 2012. This paper aims to provide a brief narrative of the life trajectory of Salma, a beneficiary of Save the Children, since her involvement in the project. Here all the changes (including economic and social ones) to her wellbeing are explored and an attempt is made to provide a picture of the underlying phenomena leading to her present situation with regard to project intervention. Salma’s life history is published on the Shiree website and is available here: http://www.shiree.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Salma-LH.pdf QUALITATIVE MONITORING OF SHIREE INTERVENTIONS: CMS5 INTERVENTION TRACKING

LIFE HISTORY AND RECENT PAST

From her life history, we discovered that Salma was born into a destitute family. Her parents did not possess any human capital or productive assets which made it impossible for them to provide for their family or improve their wellbeing. She has seven siblings and one grandmother who did not possess any skill or productive resources they had no imminent way forward for getting out of poverty.

Salma household faces many difficulties, and because her parents cannot provide for her, she is faced with the challenge of supporting her own livelihood at a very young age. She was verbally abused by the local people and suffered by many diseases. We were concerned with her engagement with child labour at such a tender age and her physical wellbeing. It was unclear if her household would be able to move out of destitution and if the family members would experience and increase in their income generating activities. These were all examined in our study, with a particular focus on the overall social, economic, and political context.

NGO graduation design

The SCI innovation fund program envisages helping extremely poor adolescent girls and boys in the Khulna district leave extreme poverty behind through engaging the adult household members in income generating activities. This project also aims at equipping the adolescent girls and boys with the skills and knowledge necessary to influence decisions at personal and household level. The intention is that the adolescent girls and boys will reach their full potential through being providing with educational support and community support systems, while adult family members are able to increase

their household income.

The program design starts with the selection of extreme poor girls and boys who are considered to be the beneficiaries. In the first phase, there was an assessment of assets and markets for IGA selection and necessary training. The project gives assets to the name of the adolescent girls and boys but they are maintained by their parents as the project wants to discourage child labour. Community mobilization also takes place so that stigma regarding gender discrimination and women’s education is removed, and the local people are happy to assist adolescent girls side by side QUALITATIVE MONITORING OF SHIREE INTERVENTIONS: CMS5 INTERVENTION TRACKING boys in getting an education. It is enforced that when adult household members get support for an IGA, they will send the adolescent girls and boys in the household to school, which will help in shaping these children’s future.

Salma is one of the beneficiaries of the project. After the need assessment it was decided that her family will be given a rickshaw van though the van has thus far, not been provided. The project set up a Learning and Recreation Centre (LRC) where adolescent girls and boys study through recreation and learn songs, and poem reciting, and dance as well as play various games. Salma has been participating, where she is learning through playing, since the intervention began.

WHAT HAPPENED?

THE INTERVENTION SEQUENCE

The intervention has not fully started for Salma, as her household has not received any material support from the project yet. However, she will be provided a rickshaw van by next September. Her second brother Shahid (15) who is a day labourer in fish depot centre or Arot will operate this van. It is expected that the money he will get from driving this van will improve household wellbeing.

She was involved with rag picking before the project started, and since the start of the project she is still doing that. It was hoped that the intervention would get her out of this profession and into education through support to the family. Her main involvement with the project so far can be listed as follows:

 Household/beneficiary selection

 Listing of potential beneficiaries

 Verification of selected beneficiaries

 Educational awareness raising to encourage the household to send the children to school

 Support for education to admit in school through 100 taka stipend.

 Selection of IGA support to adult members of the household.

After these supports were given they were regularly monitored to see that if they were sticking to their plan or not. The follow-up activities can be enlisted as follows:

 Regular monitoring

 Regular meeting with project field staff

NARRATIVE

Early Stages:

The Shiree intervention has not started yet for Salma’s household in the form of cash or IGA support. Her father is deaf and mute, suffers from poor physical health, and is sick with different types of illnesses such as fever, headache, stomachache, and diarrhea. Because of regular illnesses and his general malnutrition, he is often not able to run income generating activities. He is able to pull a rented QUALITATIVE MONITORING OF SHIREE INTERVENTIONS: CMS5 INTERVENTION TRACKING rickshaw for which he earns 30 to 40 taka per day, for two to three days monthly. Because of his physical problems he cannot attract as many passengers as other rickshaw pullers and therefore cannot earn as much income as them.

Salma’s mother is a garbage collector like Salma. She leaves home early in the morning and comes back at night at around seven or eight. For the whole day she roams around on the street and in market places situated within a radius of one or two kilometers of her slum to collect garbage, vegetables, plastic and other things, some to recycle and sell and some others for household use. She is able to collect 8 to 10 bags regularly and per bags of garbage she earn 2 or 2.50 taka, an amount too small for survival. She cleans shrimp’s head in the rainy seasons and earns approximately 300 taka daily. But this year she did not have any chance to do this because their house was flooded and the shrimp trader was not able to come to their house to give them the shrimps.

The family has been no improvement in social stigma, and they are struggling to eat two meals a day though most of day they take one meal. Their lives remain so miserable that beyond simply surviving they have no other dreams.

Salma started to attend primary school. She went to ‘Saint Mary Infant School’ in class one but she has stopped to go to school because her classmates were younger than she was. They reproached Salma, which discouraged her from going to school regularly. Salma also said that she does not like to wake up early in the morning to go to school and if she does not prepare her homework then her schoolteachers scold and beat her up, which put her off from school. Now she is also going to a Learning and Recreation Centre (LRC) arranged by the project where she can play, sing and participate in cultural activities and learns good behaviour like respecting to the elders, not scolding to others, not quarrelling with others, keeping neat and clean etc.

Middle Stages

Salma’s family is composed of eleven members consisting of Jamila and Jamal, the parents, their five daughters; Shahana (20), Mahfuza (18), Salma (12) Sonia (11) and Fatima (9 months), and three sons; Shumon (23), Shahid (15) and Masud (9), and Salma’s paternal grandmother. Salma’s eldest brother, Shumon (23) is a day labour and does not support Salma’s family financially. Her second eldest sister Shema (20) separated herself from the household after her marriage. Most of the family members are rag pickers and garbage collectors except Salma’s youngest sister Fatima, because they developed the skills to do it and have the required knowledge for it.

Even her younger brother Masud, who is nine years old, works as a rag picker. Her sister Bilkis who is one year younger than her is also not studying in school and going with her to LRC. Salma and Bilkis are going to LRC and learning there from 10 am to 2 pm. The staff of LRC said that if Salma and her sister are pressured to study then they do not come LRC thus the LRC’s staff does not give pressure to them. Salma like to play caram board and does not join the singing, dancing and drama team regularly. The LRC staffs are trying to encourage her to participate in these teams but they think that she does not have any interest in doing that. They are also wish to admit her in EUCEP School by this September but due to lack of basic knowledge, it is not possible to get her admitted to school yet. Sometimes Salma is not able to go to LRC because she is to look after her youngest sister Fatima (9 months old).

The family’s average food intake has remained constant at one and half meals per day. Salma likes to eat egg, porota, cake, mango, hotchpotch etc. though they are not able to eat these foods regularly. They mainly take dinner and spend around 100 taka per day, which comes from Salma’s parents’ income. At dinner, they eat collected foods by Salma and her sister and purchase little food. QUALITATIVE MONITORING OF SHIREE INTERVENTIONS: CMS5 INTERVENTION TRACKING

All of the family members collect rags all day long except for Salma’s father, Jamal Hawladar, and his mother. Even Salma’s grandmother sometimes goes to collect rags though her poor health does not support her to do this and she also has some disease like head ache, stomach ache, hernia and some months ago she broke her thighbone from falling down on road. Due to financial problem, she does not go to the doctor. Salma’s father had a hernia operation in March 2013. Salma’s mother borrowed 3000 taka from her boss for this operation and now she is paying this money from her income gradually. She has already paid 1000 taka from her earning and savings. Salma also has some diseases like severe stomach ache due to gastric problems though she was given some medicine after consulting with a local doctor.

Salma’s mother goes to LRC to learn to sew every day and wishes to start sewing after learning it properly as it would help to increase their family income. The rags, which they collect, they store in one corner of their house and sell them once they have enough to fetch some money. In April 2013, when they placed the collected garbage outside to dry and make it suitable for selling, it started raining and completely drenched the rags, which made them difficult to sell. This setback meant they had to borrow 2000 taka from a moneylender at a 10% interest rate. This initially helped them to cope with the loss of income because of the destroyed rags, but it has become a burden now, as they have to use the money they need for food just to pay the monthly interest. At the time of the last interviewing, some bags of garbage are stored in their house and will be sold after this rainy season.

Salma’s second elder brother Shahid (15) is one of the important people in her family because he is now one of main earners. He is a day labourer in a fish depot and earns 50-100 taka per day though his earning is not fixed. Salma’s mother wants a van from the project that will be used by her brother to sell fish from house to house and to the fish depot.

SUMMARY OF CHANGE IN KEY INDICATORS SINCE INTERVENTION

Indicator Just before the Shiree intervention End of ROI (1) Well-being category of Socially designated female

Destitute Destitute Salma

Diets* On average, Salma’s family ate one No change and a half meals a day. Frequently, they struggled to get even half-fed. It was always extremely difficult for the family to arrange the minimum amount of food for the young children. Household Livelihoods ranked in terms of contribution to that years’ income :

1. Garbage collector by Salma, 1. Garbage collector Salma’s mother, grandmother, (Rag picker) younger sister Bilkis(Rag picker) 2. Shrimps head 2. Shrimps head cleaning by Salma, cleaning Salma’s mother and sister(rainy season) 3. Rickshaw pulling

3. Rickshaw puller (Salma’s father) 4. Day labour in fish depot ( Salma’s brother Shahid)

Productive assets ranked in terms of None None value (who is key owner) QUALITATIVE MONITORING OF SHIREE INTERVENTIONS: CMS5 INTERVENTION TRACKING

House and homestead: Own 18’x10’ slum house (leased by No change Ownership or tenure and condition of the government), made from brick house. with a tin roof and brick QUALITATIVE MONITORING OF SHIREE INTERVENTIONS: CMS5 INTERVENTION TRACKING

INTERVENTION MAP FOR SALMA HAWLADAR (12) FROM DATE OF INTERVENTION TO MAY 2013 QUALITATIVE MONITORING OF SHIREE INTERVENTIONS: CMS5 INTERVENTION TRACKING- ROI (1)

DISAGGREGATED ANALYSIS

MATERIAL EMPOWERMENT: CHANGES IN ABILITY TO COMMAND MATERIAL WELL-BEING

The household does not have a secure source of income and they mainly depend on the vegetables collected from a nearby field. Income has not increased in the last year, and there have in fact been some reductions in income due to the illness of Salma’s father, as he cannot go to work regularly. When he gets well then he goes to work. They have no productive assets and are still waiting to be transferred a rickshaw van from the project. As income is so low, the family obviously has no savings, but recently they had to borrow some money when they lost their income from garbage work. They have been unable to pay this loan back, and are having to use money for food just to cover the interest. The project has failed to support this family in the last year because the projects give assets by slotting and Salma has not in the slot yet. I hope that she will be given the assets by this September.

Seasonal livelihood map - diversification

English JAN FEB MARC APRIL MAY – JUN JULY AUG. SEP OCT NOV. DEC – 14 – 14 H – 14 – 14 14 E – – 14 – 14 T. – . – – 14 . -14 14 14 14

Bangla Magh Falgun Chaitra Boishak Joishtha Ashar Srabon Bhddhro Asshin Kartik Agrahaya Poush n

Garbage Season time Lean period Season time collection

Shrimp Lean period Peak season Lean period head cleaning

HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURE: WHAT DID SHE SPEND HER SAVINGS ON?

Purpose of Amount/Year (in How financed Who is the primary decider? expenditure Taka) Food 4500 Income from selling rags, shrimps Mainly her mother and grandmother but head cleaning, rickshaw pulling, day other family members contribute to make laboring decision Treatment 3000 Borrowed from patronage by her Mainly her mother and grandmother but mother other family members contribute to make decision Total 7500/=

Who is responsible

Salma’s mother is the main decision maker for food, fuel and clothing, because her father is sick and a mute and deaf person. Most of her mother’s earning is spent on buying food for the household, medical treatment and education costs for her two children. The household members have not bought any clothes over the last year.

8 QUALITATIVE MONITORING OF SHIREE INTERVENTIONS: CMS5 INTERVENTION TRACKING- ROI (1)

RELATIONAL EMPOWERMENT: CHANGE IN POWER IN SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL RELATIONS

Salma’s family size has increased since the birth of her youngest sister Fatima who is just 9 months old. There is no significant change in the relational empowerment, and Salma’s position within the family and the community has not changed.

COMMUNITY GROUPS EMPOWERMENT

Original theory of change /Design of NGO

The project through its multi-pronged stance aimed at reducing poverty by providing IGAs to the family members of poor adolescent girls and boys, and by giving them training, and arranging educational opportunities and recreational opportunities for the adolescent girls and boys. It is expected that by providing support to the family income wellbeing will increase, and the girls and the boys will be able to attend school rather than being relied on to contribute to household income. The project also hoped that this education would increase the girls’ human capital, which will increase their future earning potential and in the process female empowerment will also be achieved.

Impact on Household/individual

Any significant effect is still to be noted but if Salma gets enrolled in a nearby school it would positively affect her future life, wellbeing and income earning potential.

PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT

There is no real impact on household perceptions or their sense of their own potential. Their continuation of the same start of poverty they were in before the intervention doesn’t allow them to realise any dream and they display not increase in confidence. In her mother’s words

“We are poor and we are doomed to lead a life of hardship. Even luck has left behind”.

Salma is going to LRC but no significant changes have been marked that she did not seem confident while interviewing. She does not like to study and LRC staffs said that she is not so attentive in singing, dancing and reciting poems as she only likes playing. At the time of interviewing she did not seem very interested in speaking of the changes or events since the intervention. She seemed unconfident and inattentive.

When she and her mother were asked to know the importance of going LRC, she and her mother said that, going LRC she gets seasonal foods like mango, jackfruit etc, cloths in festival time and some special days LRC gives them (beneficiaries) foods like milk, chocolate etc. In the winter season LRC provides them winter/warm cloths and in festival time LRC gives some cash like 100 or 200 taka to them to buy some foods and cloths. But learning poems, songs, dance or good habit were not marked as advantages of going to LRC by Salma and her mother.

All of the family members have grown pessimistic of the intervention since they told project staff several times to provide them assets but they were never provided with the assets. Salma’s mother wants Salma to go to school soon and keep study attentively as she is trying to increase Salma’s understand about the importance of study. She does not want to leave Salma as a housemaid as she is afraid that Salma will be tortured being a housemaid. She has some hopes for Salma as she said that:

“We couldn’t change our luck. Now we only hope that my girls will be able to get a better job and contribute to our family in the future”.

GENDER EMPOWERMENT

Salma does not contribute to decisions in her family as her mother and her grandmother are the main decision makers. Taking the interview of Salma it was not marked that she now realizes how important it is to complete school and to have some income generating skills for herself and her family. When she was asked that what she wants to do in her future then she answered that she would like to be a housemaid. It means that learning from LRC is not so useful for Salma.

INDIVIDUAL’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT: OTHER FAMILY MEMBER’S EXPERIENCE OF THE INTERVENTION

Salma’s mother: Salma’s mother Shorbabu thinks that going LRC Salma gets some benefits like she can get foods and cloths. She also thinks that Salma will learn very useful things if she keeps going to LRC. But she is disappointed that they have not received any assets from the project yet, although their neighbours who are also beneficiary of the project got assets. She does not know the reasons behind not getting the assets. She wants Salma to be a garment worker, after some years this can help them out of poverty.

WIDER CONTEXT – CHANGES SINCE THE INTERVENTION

Although the project intervention has not properly started yet, it is already facing some challenges:

 The project thinks that it is a challenge to stop the adolescent girls and boys from child labor as their family is poor and most of the cases the family depends on their earning. That is why it is necessary to convince their parents that they will not let their children work. But the project is trying to convince the parents and some cases they have achievements like in the case of Salma. Salma’s parents now like to send her to go to school but due to her unwillingness it was not possible yet.

 Reducing drop out is another challenge, Some child stop going to school to support their family. Thus the project ensures that the maintenance of the given assets would be handled by their family not them that they keep their course of study. Some beneficiaries’ families go to their natal village after making some profits from the project. Stopping them from going to their village is one of the challenges of the project. Because the project gives assets to do business living in urban area which must be ensured by the project plan.

 The project encourages beneficiaries to open a bank account. But it is a challenge that some of the beneficiaries do not do this as they think that they cannot use their money in season and out of season. But the project tries to make them understand that if they have a bank account they can save their income and use it when they need it.

SUBJECTIVE BENEFICIARY UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT CONSTITUTES GRADUATION

When she was asked about her opinion and perception of what she considers as graduating out of poverty Salma’s mother Jamila said,

“To be graduated from poverty requires having a job from which I can earn a sufficient income to eat three times a day. The money also needs to be sufficient to cover treatment costs.”

This perception of graduation from poverty and being non-poor is understandable as hunger and diseases are a major problem in their lives.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

SUMMARY

The project has not yet brought any positive changes in the household, and the family is still living in destitution. The rickshaw van, which they are supposed to be transferred as an IGA, is expected in the next few days, however it is unclear how much they will be able to earn from this as the income depends on how much fish her brother can sell. The family’s rag picking continues and they are still suffering from poverty and hunger. This project has tried to address their poverty by helping Salma and her sister attend school and giving them recreational opportunities to improve their psychological wellbeing. If they are given assets like van this will enable the household to have IGA and increase their income.

WHAT HAPPENED WITH REFERENCE TO THE GRADUATION PLAN?

The first part of the design plan of the project appears to have worked as Salma is now going to LRC. This has also influenced her sister, Bilkis who is going to LRC. But if Salma and her sister start to go to school while going to LRC their human capital and psychological wellbeing will be improved.

However, the household is still far away from achieving food security and the last time they had meat was during the Muslim festival of Eid last year. Salma’s mother thinks that going to Salma and her sister going to school will not affect their family income as Salma and her sister will be able to pick the same amount of rags after going to school as they do right now. This project has tried to address the family’s poverty by selecting IGA opportunities for adult family members, but unfortunately this has been delayed and the family has had no improvements in their wellbeing this year.

ANALYSIS OF HOUSEHOLD’S SUSTAINABILITY

Salma’s household does not have any productive resources and normally only eat vegetables they collect from nearby fields. Their income is vulnerable to weather and rainy days often mean days of starvation for them. As yet, this household shows no signs of exiting from extreme poverty and even when they receive the rickshaw van, poor health will be a major challenge as van pulling is very labor- intensive. Thus it would be good if the van is managed by her brother Shahid rather than her father.

NORMATIVE CHANGE AND SOCIALLY TRANSFORMATIVE CHANGE

There are no significant positive changes because of the project. Neighbours still look at them with scorn and verbally abuse them, and they are neglected and regarded as worthless in society. It will be really challenging for this project to change this perception of people and a daunting task to achieve a positive formative change for this household.

PROGRAMME AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

 Salma needs more attention from the LRC staff to develop her extracurricular skills and also she is needed to learn about the importance of study by the LRC staff. She needs more attention and monitoring from the project staff to develop her skills and knowledge.

 The IGA is being delayed, which is why her financial condition has not improved that much. No impact was able to be drawn of her life due to her IGA.

KEY INFORMANT INTERVIEW

Name: Mahfuza Begum

Occupation: Business (Shrimp head cleaning)

Date of interview: 8/10/13

Place of interview: Key Informant’s house

KEY REASON WHY YOU ARE INTERVIEWING THIS PERSON

Mahfuza Begum and her husband are the employers under whom Salma’s mother works as a shrimp head cleaner. Mahfuza’s husband is the key person in running this business. He collects shrimps, cleans their head, and sells. To do this he needs day labour. Many poor women who are his neighbours are doing this work and his wife Mahfuza does it as well and maintains the business during her husband’s absence. Mahfuza’s husband Jamal was first selected to be interviewed but due to his absence, Mahfuza was interviewed.

FINDINGS

According to Mahfuza Salma’s family is good and hard working. They work very hard to feed themselves and in September, they got a van, which is operated by Salma’s father, has been good for them. According to Mahfuza, they now solvent and her father earns 60-100 taka per day. Salma’s siblings are getting old enough that they work to support their family.

Salma’s mother and Salma work for Mahfuza doing household chores. Mahfuza said that they usually do not visit Salma’s house but Salma and family members come to their house. Mahfuza never goes to in festival season. She said that she has no time for roaming around. However, it is assumed that here social status is the key reason as Mahfuza’s family is relatively better off family in the area where they live.

Mahfuza does not know very much about the project. She only knows that Salma was given a van from a company and sometimes Salma goes to a centre (She means LRC but she does not know the name) about which Salma told her. She saw that Salma has tremendous changes in her attitude, before going LRC she was quite unclean and did not wear clean dress, or clean her nails properly. Salma’s family also live in unhygienic conditions. However, after going to LRC, she has been neat and clean, and her family maintains good hygiene and cleans their house, which has been good for them.

Salma’s mother now does not come to Mahfuza for cleaning shrimp heads as Mahfuza thinks that their financial condition has been going well enough for the last seven to eight months because her second elder brother has started to support them. The relationship between Mahfuza and Salma’s family remains the same before and after the project Mahfuza still sees them as her employees who have lower status then her.

Mahfuza said that the elite people in their area do not value Salma’s family, as they are poor. The people who have money do not help Salma’s family and the chairman and UP member of this are never take care of them. This perception remains same after of the intervention.

Mahfuza said that Salma’s mother borrowed money and took food materials lick paddy, flour, pulse etc. from Mahfuza but paid the money returned the food items in time. Mahfuza thinks that Salma’s mother works as a day labour so she had little money to pay her dues. For the last several months Salma’s mother has not taken any money or food items from Mahfuza that Mahfuza thinks that their financial condition is improving though she did not mention the intervention’s contribution rather she mentioned that her mother is going to work as shrimp head collector for other and Salma’s brother and father are also earning. Mahfuza also mentioned that Salma’s fathers’ income is improving due to van because he earns through this van by moving people’s furniture, luggage, selling fish etc.