Project Goal: Tolerant and peaceful democratic spaces promoted with upholding human rights in civic and social sectors through active engagement of empowered civic activists, youth, women, minorities and marginalized groups.

Objectives  :

Obj-1: Support to youth, women and marginalized, particularly new voters from different ethnic and minority communities.

 Obj-2: Mobilize local-level rights holders to initiate and conduct collective efforts to prevent political-communal violence and promote minorities democratic rights in pre, during, and post-election activism.

Project Summary: The ASTHA project intends to ensure a smooth, non-violent democratic process by supporting urban and rural marginalized youth and women, including men’s participation in the electoral process pre, during and post the phases of the national election in Bangladesh in early 2024. It will support the acceleration of the rightsholders for a more peaceful, fair, credible, and cheerful national election. The Project is supporting youth, women, and marginalized, particularly new voters from different ethnic and minority communities, to promote a peaceful and tolerant democratic space. The project is working on creating content to establish civic opinion, outreach, and the rights of voters to raise their voices, as well as the capacity enhancement of the elected members of parliaments for upholding the true essence of democracy. Through the project initiatives, active participation of youth and women-led civic groups is expected to conduct a violence-free, participatory, and credible election and contribute to maintaining the development process initiated by GO-NGOs and development partners on the aspect of youth, marginalized, and women empowerment in social economic and political spaces.

Development Partner: Switzerland Government

Project Area: 18 Districts (Barguna, Patuakhali, Satkhira, Sunamganj, Habiganj, Moulvibazar, Panchagahr, Thakurgaon, Dinajpur, Naogaon, Chapainawabganj, Joypurhat, Khagrachari, Rangamati, Bandarban, Netrokona, Mymensingh, and Sherpur) all 147 Upazila of those districts.

Project Duration       : 01 July 2023 to 31 March 2026

Implementing Partners: ASHIKA Development Associates, Democracy watch, GRAUS, Sabalamby Unnayan Samity (SUS), Trinamul Unnyan Sangstha and Rupantar.

 Major Activities:

• Develop and activate the Youth Forum and link with the District Civic Platform.
• Capacity Development of Youth Forum.
• Carry out awareness campaigns to increase voter participation in the electoral process.
• District-level Civic platform development and activation.
• Civic Platform and Youth Forum led district-level consultation meetings with election officials and relevant stakeholders on the security of ethnic and minority people.
• Civic Platform and Youth Forum led communication with minority communities for their confidence building at the union level.
• Interactive meetings between Civic Platform members, elected representatives, and political leaders about the pre-election commitment.
• Civic Platform led district-level consultation with elected representatives and political leaders on governance and democratic practices focusing on preventing political-communal violence and promoting minorities democratic rights
• Interactive meeting between elected representatives and rights holders (Civic Platform and Youth group led) at the constituency level after the election period.
• National-level learning-sharing and policy advocacy dialogue with policymakers and relevant influential actors for promoting peaceful democratic practices.

 Major Challenges:

• Ensuring active involvement in project activities or meetings during the paddy cultivating season is inflexible. Most marginalized youth, especially, are earning members of their families. Organizing the courtyard poses a challenge due to this reason. Farmers, day laborers, and other working group participants, as most of the marginalized communities, were busy with harvesting and farming.
• Civic platform members, Government officials, and elected representatives were busy with their official work, elections, campaigns, and other activities. For this reason, there has been a lot of haste in organizing regular meetings and other activities.
• The flood and its effects caused the Youth and project staff to face difficulties in implementing project activities, especially in Rangpur, Sylhet, Mymensingh, and Rajshahi. The youth were busy protecting flood-afflicted people’s shelters and making other necessary arrangements, so the program’s implementation was interrupted.
• Marginalized people lack communication opportunities and live in hard-to-reach areas, especially in the Chottogram Hill Tracks (CHT) and Sunamganj Haor area. Due to the long distance from one union of the Upazila to another, reaching every marginalized person and ensuring their participation is very challenging. Moreover, in the isolated hilly areas in many unions, it is difficult to communicate with youth virtually because of inadequate internet connectivity in their area.
• Some community members have shared experiences regarding contextual changes and political violence during election cycles that could be alarming. Also, some barriers to implementing project activities have been encountered during the election period, such as youth, and others have been hesitant to participate due to fear of various violent incidents and political strikes.
• The district government administration of Bandarban imposed transportation restrictions on Ruma Upazila because of KNF’s government bank looting. The project team could not visit Ruma Upazila for project activities or communication.
• The project faced youth drop out 2-5% quarterly. Some have jobs in another village, some families have moved, and some female youth forum members have had to transfer their location (to their husband’s residence) because they got married.

Achievements:

• The project efficaciously engaged (4,410 youth) more than 43% of marginalized and minority communities, including but not limited to Munda, Madrazi, Tripura, Hajong, Khasia, Bhumij, Turiya, Orao, Manipuri, Chakma, Garo, Santal, Dalit, Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Shanta, Hindu, Barua.
• A remarkable 2,237 (56% of total target) young men, women, and minority groups (55% male and 45% female) shaped their democratic future by participating in key electoral processes (during National Election 2024, Upazila Election 2024). Like, peaceful election campaigns, cultural fairs, community dialogues, interactive meetings with new voters on elector rights, street meetings with candidates, marginalized community-level sharing meetings, and direct engagement with political candidates.
• A total of 244 (56% of total target) volunteer-led events and sessions to sensitize communities on the reduction of communal and electoral violence. 2,823 political and community leaders from both major and opposition parties, as well as representatives from minority communities, were sensitized and pledged to avoid any violence during political events
• 486 (11% of total target) individuals (58% male and 42% female) emerged as whistleblowers, actively contributing to the prevention of political violence and supporting the democratic rights of minorities alongside ASTHA Youth and Civic groups. ASTHA project identified approximately 4,872 potential whistleblowers across its working areas.

No of Beneficiary : 603,590

Beneficiary Category: Marginalized community people, mainly ethnic and religious minority groups, local civil society representatives including women, youth, and opinion leaders, community leaders and policymakers, local administration, election officials, law enforcement agencies, project partners, NGOs, CSOs, and CBOs.

 Action Related Photos: