Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) organised a 4 day-long residential Training Workshop for the Trainers on Capacity Building of Local Leaders and Journalists for Ensuring Safe Labour Migration, Efficient Transfer and Effective Use of Remittances, from August 3-6, 2007. The workshop was conducted jointly under Capacity Building for Ensuring Safe Labour Migration (CABSLAM) and Remittance and Payments Partnership (RPP) projects. The projects are supported by Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF) and DFID, respectively.

The projects are being implemented through seven partner NGOs in migration prone areas. The NGOs are – Rural Poor Development Organization (RPDO) and Social Advancement through Unity (SATU) of Tangail, Young Power in Social Action (YPSA) and United Development Initiatives for Programmed Action (UDDIPAN) of Chittagong, Assistance for Human Resource Development with Technology (AHRDT) and Center for Community Development Assistance (CCDA) of Comilla, and BASTOB of Greater Dhaka.

With the help of these NGOs, RMMRU is developing 42 Migrants’ Rights Protection Committees (MRPC) in those areas. This Training of the Master Trainers was conducted to build the capacity of MRPC’s members to reduce fraudulence practices of Dalals and unscrupulous recruiting agencies, and to accelerate the effective management of remittance and increase the usage of formal channel in remitting. The members of the MRPC include the PNGO officials, school teachers, local bank officials, UP member, Ward Commissioner, retired civil service officer, local passport officer, returnee migrants, and migrants’ family members.

The workshop was designed with seven working sessions covering different aspects of migration and remittance, to lead to the achievement of project goals – ‘ensuring safe labour migration’ and ‘better management of remittances’. These sessions were – migration and remittance scenario in Bangladesh, migration decision and processing, information required in the different destination locations, female migration and safety, migration and remittances, and rehabilitation of the returnee migrants. The working sessions were conducted by experts of migration and remittance sector, including Dr. Nurul Islam, Director: Director of Research, Monitoring and Computer, Bureau of Manpower, Employment & Training (BMET), and Mr. Md. Selim Reza, Director: Emigration and Protocol, Bureau of Manpower, Employment & Training (BMET), along with RMMRU officials.

Dr. Shahdeen Malik, Chairperson of RMMRU inaugurated the training session that was held on last Friday at BIAM, Dhaka. Dr. Tasneem Siddiqui, Member of Executive Committee of RMMRU was the moderator of the programme. On the final day, all participants were awarded with certification of completion by Mr. Richard Moss, Team Leader of Remittance and Payments Partnership (RPP) and Dr. Ashraf Siddiqui, the Folklore Specialist, who were present as the Special Guest of the concluding ceremony. Both of them emphasized on the necessity of using legal channels in migration and remittance, and designated the thanks on behalf of the projects to the main functionaries of social change.