The Bakdil Story

Based out of Garo Hills, Meghalaya, Bakdil has worked tirelessly for the past 34 years for the upliftment of rural livelihoods. Set up by the diocese of Tura, Bakdil aims to ensure the people of Garo Hills are an integral part of Meghalaya's development journey. Our work spans across multiple sectors: rural community mobilization, health, education, agriculture development, disaster intervention, women empowerment, micro-finance, entrepreneurship and skill development programs. We operate out of 22 blocks, working with close to 20,000 farmers and their families. An elaborate system of dedicated on-ground staff, diligent office staff and iterative processes help us ensure our organisation is able to provide holistic support and reform to individuals.

SCOPE

Facilitating Social Development in Garo Hills

MISSION

Supporting community-based

organizations for socioeconomic development leading to human dignity

VISION

A just and value-based society,

where people have equal

opportunities and are self-reliant

History of Bakdil

Origins:

Bakdil origins date back to the year 1971, when the Indo-Pakistan War for Bangladesh created unprecedented societal turmoil, resulting in an influx of thousands of refugees from formerly East Pakistan to Garo Hills. The Catholic Church then formed the organization and played a pivotal role in mitigating the suffering of the refugees housed in make-shift camps erected by the government. Over time the institution, in partnership with the Catholic relief services, provided food supplies that not only helped supplement the nutritional needs of the population, but also helped the community to create long term assets like land and fish ponds through Food for Work and other similar programmes.

Progression:

By the 1980’s Bakdil had taken up several programmes for causes such as Income Generation, Drinking Water Projects and Disaster Relief Projects. Projects such as Development of Piggery, Dairy Farms, Agriculture, Health Education and so on were initiated to provide a stable source of income generation. By 1987, Bakdil was registered as a Non Profit Organization and by 2001 Bakdil obtained FCRA. This helped in strengthening Bakdil’s agenda of getting funds directly from donor agencies, to help people without any discrimation based on caste, creed or religion and gender.

Bakdil Today:

BAKDIL is now engaging in almost every possible development activity to uplift livelihoods in entire Garo Hills region. We are an organisation currently implementing more than 15 projects in different locations in five Districts of Garo Hills, such as Facilitating Agriculture Regenerative Measures (FARM) – IV, Management of 5 Primary Health Centres, Skill Development Training of 1000 drop-out youth in Masonry and Plumbing, The Community-based Forest Management and Livelihood Improvement in Meghalaya, National Ruaral Livelihood Mission (NRLM), National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM), Integrated Tribal Development Programme (ITDP) in four Blocks, Springshed Based Watershed Development Programme, Livelihood & Enterprise Development Programme (LEDP), Gram Seva-SBI Foundation, Establishment of Rural Marts, Construction of Rural Haats, Intensified Malaria Elimination Programme (IMEP) - 2, Centre for Financial Literacy-RBI, 5 Support staff of MBMA, etc. with employees more than 300, working at the grassroots level among Garo villagers to help bring about substantial, long-term change. We are operating out of five centres, and staying among several local villages where activities such as community mobilisation and several training programmes take place.

We work across

blocks,

in

5 districts.

Working with

22 20,000+

farmers to promote

and sustain livelihoods

through

Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs),

Self-Help Groups (SHGs),

Producer Groups (PGs),

Cooperative Societies and several other developmental

programs.

Click here to find out more about the work we do.