Those 30 children who gathered in a remote non-formal learning center on the bank of the river Jamuna with a vision to shaping their future, or those 32 women in Dhantola village (Sariakandi upazilla) who started pisciculture to support their livelihoods, or those 38 women of Fulbari village who started handicrafts to earn some money for maintaining their families are the pioneers of Gram Unnayan Karma (GUK). This is how we started GUK 27 years ago in a very small scale, but with a very ambitious vision – a vision of developing poverty free Bangladesh, a country which had nearly half of the population living under the poverty line. Now, we are in a family of more than half a million members spread all over the country, working relentlessly to make the vision a reality. In GUK, we believe that family is the center point of all development activities and designed our interventions accordingly.
Considering that health is the root of all happiness and prosperity of a nation, GUK gives utmost priority to healthcare services for its beneficiaries in order to make them physically and mentally fit for undertaking diversified economic activities. We are providing services by extending general healthcare, mother & child healthcare, adolescent reproductive healthcare, safe motherhood, prevention and control of needless blindness through GUK Eye Hospital, safe water and sanitation, nutrition promotion, quality education and need based skill development training for optimum utilization of their potentialities in the field of socio-economic development activities. Likewise, GUK emphasizes on women empowerment, socially, economically and politically through involvement in economic activities and active participation in socio-political events so that they can play a vital role in decision making in any forum. On the other hand, the rural people are almost small and marginalized farmers and always bypassed by many socio-economic opportunities and they deserve all out support like financial services, supply of improved quality of inputs, new technologies, linkage with respective government departments, market linkage with market actors to sell their agricultural and other products at a fair price. GUK plays a vital role to accomplice all the activities in the field. After passing through a long journey of challenges, we now proudly feel that the vision we set 27 years ago has almost become reality.
