Village Education Resource Center (VERC)

At a glance

Journey Begins

The Village Education Resource Center (VERC) is a non-governmental organization which started its journey in 1977 as a collaborative project of Save the Children, USA and UNICEF. It became a legal entity under Society’s Registration Act, in 1981, with the Department of Social Services in 1989 and with the NGO Affairs Bureau, Bangladesh. VERC is working with the poor and marginalize community for their empowerment through improving their situation by attaining self-reliance. It always tries to address the emerging needs of the working communities and collaborates with various local, national and international NGOs and government departments in realizing their common goal of social development.

Since inception, VERC is working on different development aspects spreading all over the country. VERC implement its activities systematically in a planned way by consulting the community people and other development partners.

Vision
A self-reliant society based on justice, equity and sustainability where every human being has the equal opportunity to maximize their potentials.

Mission
Establish and promote a dynamic and participatory sustainable process towards human development by empowering the people especially the disadvantaged through exploring, generating and mobilizing resources to improve their quality of life.

Strategies
– Develop and institutionalize alternatives in the field of peoples participatory development approach, methods and tools.
– Enhancing capacity of development actors as effective facilitator of peoples participatory development process
– Implement innovative programmes directly for linking and institutionalizing experiential learning.
– Explore utilize promote and facilitate peoples capacity for innovativeness and undertaking different development initiatives.
– Identify, explore and mobilize local, public and private resources including human potentials for optimum output and overall development of the country.

In all its work, VERC is committed to the principle of self-actualization a process of raising peoples consciousness to a level at which they can realize their potentials and are motivated to reorder their lives.

Programs

– WatSan and Technology
– Microfinance Program
– Health
– Women’s Literacy and Children’s Education especially for the poor and disadvantaged
– Environmental Protection
– Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation

Besides the above mentioned six programs VERC Training and Communication Section operates different comprehensive training program for program personnel of its own and for other development concerns. Its Research, Evaluation & Documentation (RED) and Administration and Support Service teams are providing support for implementation of all those programs smoothly.

The Management: The principal management bodies are
– A General Council consisting of 22 members (20 individuals and 2 institutions) from among the development workers, university teachers and officials from various types of organizations.
– A Board of Directors consisting of 7 elected members from the General Council and the Executive Office.
– An Executive Director with the help of program and professional staff with long experience in the field of rural development supervise the organization and its range of sector programs.