Saturday 11th August (Part 5)

We have recently started a pilot programme with a new organisation of blind people – BVIPS. This is a group of blind graduates who are starting up, as the only other organisation of (rather than for) the blind is apparently non active.

The office is clearly very active in advocacy, but there was one area which stood out for me – their work with NFOWD (see later) and the electoral commission in promoting the voting rights of visually impaired people. They had been successful in improving the process to allow visually impaired people to have a sighted guide of their own choice to vote with them (although they had to be of the same gender as Bangladesh segregates its voting stations). I wondered whether we have done any similar work elsewhere, and thought this sort of advocacy ought to be fundable from the Department for International Development etc. This will all have to be repeated for the next set of elections due in 2008.

This evening we held a dinner at a local restaurant for a range of partners, government officials, donors and other agencies. This was a great opportunity to meet a number of partners ahead of visits later in the week.