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In 1972, Fazle Hasan Abed founded the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) and a holistic development model that has revolutionized income-generating opportunities for rural communities in developing countries. Through its handicraft and fashion section, Aarong, BRAC has developed a sustainable national brand that provides a livelihood in the creative industries for tens of thousands of people across Bangladesh.
Initially established as a small-scale relief and rehabilitation project to assist refugees returning from India after Bangladesh's war of liberation, BRAC is now one of the world's largest development organizations. With a founding donation of £189,000 (about USS 31S1OOO) from Oxfam, Mr Abed established four health clinics, built fishing boats and offered housing assistance to promote employment in more than 200 villages in northern Bangladesh. Since then, BRAC has disbursed more than US$ 7 billion to more than 7 million borrowers in Asia and Africa.
With more than 120,000 employees and an annual turnover of US$ 535 million, BRAC's commercial success is obvious. But for BRAC1 the real measure of achievement is the positive impact it has on the lives of the 110 million people it reaches through its development work every day.
Aarong - BRAC's flagship social enterprise
BRAC established Aarong, its handicraft-marketing branch, in 1978. The initiative was dedicated to creating economic opportunity for disadvantaged artisans and rural women through the revivai and promotion of their traditional handicrafts. Today Aarong has become the foundation for independent cooperative groups and family-based artisans to market their craft, both within Bangladesh and internationally. The project currently has nine retail outlets and supports more than 65,000 artisans in 2,000 villages across Bangladesh, An additional 25,000 independent cooperative groups and traditional family-based artisans also sell their crafts through Aarong. Potters, brass workers, jewellers, jute workers, basket weavers, handloom and silk weavers, wood carvers, leather workers and other artisans from all over the country come to Aarong for marketing and support services.
Every woman who works in Aarong-owned production facilities is also a beneficiary of BRAC's multifaceted development programmes with access to micro-credit to develop income-generation activities in addition to their regular wages.
As further evidence of BRAC's successful business model Aarong has seen an average annual business growth of 40 per cent in the past four years (see...