The New Nation - Internet Edition

PTI, New Delhi

Reflecting his keen interest in rural development models, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi would pay a five-day visit to Bangladesh from August one to get a first-hand knowledge of the pioneering work done by Bangladesh Rural Advancement Centre (BRAC) in a range of fields including education and health.

The 38-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family, who has evinced interest in BRAC's. work, would begin his visit to Bangladesh by seeing several projects run by BRAC which works in micro-finance, women's empowerment, community health, education, legal and human rights protection and rural programmes, BRAC.'s Public Affairs Director Mohd Anwarul Huq

told PTI over phone from Dhaka.

Rahul, who reaches Dhaka on August 1, is also expected to visit some projects of Grameen Bank whose founder and Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yunus had met him in Delhi last year.

The two had discussed replicating the Bank's micro- finance model in the Congress leader's Lok Sabha constituency Amethi, said Huq who till a few years ago was a senior diplomat in Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi. Other details of Rahul's visit were still being worked out, he said, adding that a ten- member Special Protection Group is reaching Dhaka Monday to discuss with concerned agencies of Bangladesh the security arrangement for him.

By visiting BRAC projects, Rahul would be the latest in a long list of high-profile personalities including former American President Bill Clinton, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.

The leaders have acclaimed the activities of the largest development organisation in the world, founded by Fazle Hasan Abed, which began its journey as a relief and rehabilitation body when thousands of refugees streamed back to Bangladesh from India after it was liberated in December, 1971.

This will be Rahul's first visit to Bangladesh which his grandmother Indira Gandhi had visited once immediately after the liberation of Bangladesh and his father Rajiv Gandhi twice as Prime Minister for the SAARC Summit in 1985 and then soon after a devastating cyclone in 1988.

Huq expressed the hope Rahul would find his visit to BRAC projects a rewarding experience as BRAC, employing more than 1,00,000 people in 3000 offices through an integrated development approach, and other NGOs. are engaged in uplifting the social indicators in several sectors like health and education.

Hundreds of graduating students from several famous universities like Harvard, Oxford and Yale do internships with BRAC programmes every year to know about its rural empowerment programs.

BRAC works in a number of countries across the world including four in Asia and three in Africa.

Rahul has interacted with Grameen Bank officials at least half a dozen times and has started some micro-finance and women's self-help group projects in Amethi like Mahila Yojana under which resources are generated from the people themselves.

The idea behind Congress General Secretary's visit to BRAC and Grameen Bank projects in Bangladesh is to see if some of them can be replicated in villages across India.