German NGO NETZ provides support to 20,000 families in north Bangladesh

NETZ Partnership for Development and Justice (also known in short as NETZ), a Germany based international NGO working exclusively in Bangladesh, has started providing food and hygiene support to the poor and extreme poor households whose livelihoods have come to a halt by the ongoing shutdown to control the spread of Covid-19.

NETZ aims to support 20,000 families with its humanitarian support package priced at 22 Euros each, according to a press release sent to media.

The distribution of the relief started on April 28 this year.  

Each of the support package contains rice, potatoes, lentil, edible oil, salt, sugar, suji (semolina), soap, mask and some over-the-counter medicines.

The packages are handed over to vulnerable families –all the while maintaining social distancing--in hard to reach areas of Chapainawabganj, Naogaon, Gaibandha, Dinajpur, Nilphamari, Rangpur and Kurigram.

With the coordination and help of local administration, partner NGOs of NETZ is delivering the support packages mostly to female headed households, ethnic minorities, old aged and differently abled people who were selected considering their vulnerability and poor access to services.

NETZ's partner NGOs went through a rigorous selection process following a set of criteria consisting of per capita per day income, number of earning members in a family, food consumption, access to credit and other service providing institutions including their access to social safety net supports. The current support package is being provided to enable them to avoid starvation and refrain themselves from forced sale of productive assets what they had received earlier as a part of livelihood development support initiated by NETZ. 

"Many of the support receivers who are mainly agri-labourers have already borrowed money from informal sources and fallen to the trap of advanced labour sale in their locality, said Habibur Rahman Chowdhury, Country Director of NETZ Bangladesh Office.