Needs Assessment of SOS Children’s Villages Bangladesh

Nine out of 10 children in Bangladesh below the age of 14 (accounting for 45 million boys and girls) are subjected to violent disciplining in their homes from caregivers, including their parents and teachers (UNICEF, 2020). Violent disciplining, sexual abuse, child labour, lack of parental care, school dropout child marriage and psychological punishment remain widespread in Bangladesh, putting millions of children at risk of harm every day. To adequately respond to the needs of vulnerable children, over 14 organizations have been working in Bangladesh. SOS Children’s village Bangladesh is one of them who work with vulnerable children and their families to help strengthen them and prevent child abandonment with a single vision that every child belongs to a family and grows with love, respect, and security. For this commitment SOS design programs to help to achieve the SDGs by improving the national social protection system, combating inequality, encouraging access to high-quality education, enhancing youth employability, and putting an end to violence against children, with a particular focus on the target group. In doing so, a needs assessment should be carried out per programme cycle in order to guide co-workers of SOS Children’s Villages on whether the organization is the best-placed as a stakeholder to respond in a certain community, and to provide up-to-date information on the context and most crucial needs of the target group.

CRD (led by Dr. Md Mokhlesur Rahman, lead consultant & CEO of CRD) has been appointed to conduct the needs assessment to develop the programme concept by giving recommendations and implementation plan.