The Organization 

Baidarie is a non-government and non-profit civil society organization which was established in 1993 by a group of rural women of Union Council Roras, Tehsil Sambrial District Sialkot. With a demonstrated-focus on community-led and demand-driven approach, the organization carries out its operations without having religious, lingual, political, social, or any other discriminations.

Registration:

Baidarie Sialkot is registered under Social Welfare Agencies (Registration & Control) Ordinance 1961 with the Social Welfare Department, Punjab vide certificate No. DDSW-GRW (Regd ) / 2000-790 of 2000. Baidarie is certified (as per NPO evaluation standards notified by FBR) by Pakistan Center for philanthropy (PCP) vide Certificate No. PCP-2018/630 dated 22 Nov 2018. Punjab Charity Commission has granted registration (Provisional) to Baidarie vide registration No. PB-4565780787440175 dated 26 Oct 2020. Having fulfilled all the procedural requirements, Baidarie submitted its application to Economic Affairs Division Ministry of Finance for signing an MOU in respect of its NED funded “ Programme for strengthening democratic local governance in District Sialkot Phase-II and   Amplify Change funded “Programme for the promotion of gender equity, empowerment and Justice: Phase-II”. EAD vide its letter No. 2(764) NGO/EAD/2020 dated 13 July 2020 acknowledged the receipt of the application. ( Copy of EAD letter is attached herewith) Matter is under the process with EAD. Commissioner Inland Revenue Sialkot Zone In exercise of the powers under sub-clause (c) of clause (36) of section 2 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 read with Rule 212 and Rule 220 of the Income Tax Rules, 2002, has granted to Baidarie, Model Town Sialkot having NTN 4001561 as “Non-Profit Organization” The approval is granted as NPO by FBR vide No.  4001561 dated 29 June 2020.

Vision:  “An equitable society that can provide for institutionalized guarantee of protection and promotion of civil, political, economic, social & cultural rights to the vulnerable social segments especially women & girls, children and persons with physical limitations.”

Mission:  “To provide enabling environment and friendly spaces for empowerment of marginalized social segments especially women & girls through general awareness of laws, capacity building and facilitating their access to the social protection networks.”

Mandate: “ To contribute to  the development of an equitable society that can provide for an institutionalized  guarantee of protection and promotion of all the  civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights to all the vulnerable social segments  especially women, children and persons with physical limitations.”   

Strategic Priorities: Baidarie’s strategic priorities include (a) promotion of gender equity, empowerment & justice and (b) enabling women & girls to make organized struggle for their socioeconomic & political empowerment.

AIMS and Objectives:

1.In perfect compliance of the national and provincial laws and in pursuance of the principles of transparency and accountability, the organization will continue to strive to achieve the following objectives within its purview.Increase in knowledge, capacity building for economic productivity, skills enhancement, job placement, increasing self-employment of socially and economically marginalized Social segments especially women to reduce and alleviate poverty by increasing their financial and social participation.

2.Increase in access to opportunities for women, children, special people and all sections of society having limited access to development opportunities to advance them in all spheres of life without any discrimination, harassment, fear and violence.

3.Increase in access to opportunities for disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment and counseling for all, especially women and girls with health issues.

4.Establish and operate medical institutions to improve the health care for mothers and newborns as much as possible.

5.To facilitate the special persons and women & girls in acquisition of their National Identity Card, their registration as voters and in exercise to their right to vote.Facilitate the formation of a transparent, efficient, credible and accountable structure of local governments so that women and other vulnerable groups can be effectively involved in the local opinion / policy and decision making process.

6.To facilitate the communities in acquisition of knowledge and skills in formal, non-formal and technical fields of education and to promote general financial literacy.

7.To acquaint women, men and youth with the basic skills of living and their basic constitutional rights and duties so that they can play their role in the process of national development in a positive and constructive manner.

8.Collecting cash and / or commodities as donations for the rescue and rehabilitation of the victims of a natural calamity or human tragedy and distributing the collected aid to the needy ones.

9.Provide basic legal and social psychological counseling and easy access to expedited access to justice to those suffering from violence, physical abuse, mental affliction and psychological distress, especially women, on the basis of gender discrimination.

10.Receiving gifts, donations, loans and movable or immovable property, etc. from the government, government agencies, national and international donors, corporations, companies or individuals for the purpose of achieving organizational objectives in compliance with the government regulations.

Structural, operational, financial and logistical features of the organization:

1. Decision Making Bodies: Baidarie has following three tier leadership and governance structure comprising of GB, Board and Management.

1. General Bodyof the organization comprises of programme beneficiaries (32 women + 8 Men) and it meets once a year to formulate and approve organizational policy.
2. Boardis a mix of social development experts, practitioners and beneficiaries dedicated to the advancement of gender equality, empowerment and justice. It meets quarterly to determine strategic dimensions of the organization and grants approval to programme designs in accordance with the mandate and the policy approved by General Body. 

1. Management comprises of six (6) women/girls + one (1) man beneficiaries turned to social development activists. It meets monthly and/or on the basis of need to take care of routine financial, administrative and operational affairs.

Participation of the programme beneficiaries including women groups in all of the above listed three decision making bodies helps in identification of their right based needs and demands, sorting out solutions to their problems, themselves becoming part of the solutions and in maintaining continuous connectivity of the organization with communities.

1. Project Management Support:
2. Operational  Structure:
3. Leadership: It comprises of Vice President, Executive Director and General Manager.
4. Regular Staff: The organization is currently having 22 paid staff members comprising of 16 men and 06 women. They include graduates and post graduates in health, social sciences and finance. All of them have received trainings relating their professional responsibilities. As of now their association with the organization ranges from 4 to 18 years.

1. Volunteers; Organization is privileged to have strong working relationship with 57 CBOs/NGOs, 389 Community organizations, 6 District Level Vigilance Groups, 12 Youth Vigilance Groups, 1 Division Level Monitoring Group and 46 community vigilance groups working in its operational areas in six (6) districts of Gujranwala Davison (Punjab) . In addition, it has created rich treasure of social capital in the form of young women & men volunteers who always render their services for promoting social and human development agenda of the organization. All of them live in remote rural areas of Gujranwala Division.

1. Project Management Controls

1. Project Operations: Baidarie has developed following measures to produce desired output/outcome level results in quantitative   and qualitative terms within the stipulated timeframe by using the allocated technical, financial, human resources.

1. Before commencement of the implementation of the project activities, senior management of the organization imparts training to the project team (employed in pursuance of the organization’s HR & Admin policy) on the backdrop, rationality, objectives and methodology for in time accomplishment of the desired output results in quantitative and qualitative terms.

2. Project implementation team develops comprehensive master plan of activities to meet the project objectives. Workload is distributed on quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily basis with defined roles and responsibilities of the implementation team. Area mapping is done and working areas are allocated to each of the team members.

3. Daily work plans and progress reports are prepared by the members of the operational team of the project and submitted to supervisory tiers in the team for review and prompt necessary feedback and advice.

4. The project team meets regularly to plan and review its performance. Such meetings are the main instruments of enhancing coordination, experience sharing, mutual support and to keep track of the progress. The vice president and/ or Executive Director Baidarie may on the basis of need join the staff meetings and give their input for overcoming the problems,  encountering the challenges, situation handling and making up the shortfalls in capacity.  The capacity gaps are identified and shortfalls are made up through on-job training. If felt necessary, special training sessions are conducted to give boost to the performance potentials of the team.

5. Field monitoring plan clearly reflecting objectively verifiable performance indicators in respect of each and every activity to assess quantitative and qualitative achievement of output level results is developed and implemented after getting necessary approval from the management.

6. Monitoring officer conducts announced and/or need based unannounced monitoring visits to check the conduct of the project activities in accordance with the pre-defined objectively verifiable performance indicators. She/he generates real-time monitoring reports and submits to Executive Director who after necessary review of daily monitoring reports issues necessary immediate advice for the corrective measures.

7. Senior Management of the organization in its monthly or need based meetings convened on urgent basis carefully reviews the progress update, flow of activities, monitoring reports, feedbackfrom the right holders and the relevant stakeholders.  Senior staff in the operational team of the project is also invited in these meetings.  Quantity and quality of the performance during the field operations is matched with the pre-determined operational targets.  Shortfalls and areas for improvement are identified.  Necessary instructions, if required are issued to the project team to improve the quality of the performance for accomplishing the objectives of the project in the best possible way.  Approval to work plan for next month is accorded after adjusting variances, if any.

8. Optimum efforts are made that that back-logs in conduct of activities are not created. If some changes in the work plan, strategies, activities or financial allocations are felt necessary in wake of field realities/obstacles etc., these are submitted to  the funding agency along with the  supporting  logic for the proposed action,  and only after their approval the modified plan is taken up for action.

The organization puts in place horizontal hierarchy of management so that efficient decision making assuring timely risk mitigation may be done.

Financial Control is put in place by taking up the following measures.

1. Finance and Accounts Section submits financial forecast to the support agency in complete respect of the prescribed time frame.
2. Finance and Accounts Section of the organization releases funds only for the activities approved in the project document and in line with the approved work plan.
3. Disbursement of all the project funds for carrying out the activities is made in accordance with the organizational SOPs approved by BoD and financial guidelines provided by the support agency.
4. Yearly audit of the project is conducted by the Chartered Accountants Firm approved by the organization’s BoD. The yearly audit report is submitted to funding agency in accordance with a mutually agreed timeframe.
5. Any financial monitoring to be carried out by support agency as part of the project protocol/contractual arrangements is qualitatively entertained and facilitated.

Information Management: Following arrangements are put in place for the purposes of information management;

1. Baseline Assessment Report reflecting socioeconomic conditions  and training needs of the direct beneficiaries of the programmatic interventions.
2. Technical progress reports documenting the conduct of the project activities
3. Field Monitoring Reports
4. Minutes of the meeting for conducting assessment of the overall progress of the project.
5. Financial Record of the project
6. Monthly, quarterly and yearly financial reports
7. End-of- Project Evaluation Report, if required.
8. Any report that may be compiled by some third party evaluator.

All of the above listed document /reports are made available for review and assessment of the relevant stakeholders of the project.

1. Internal Controls

The organization has effective internal controls and the project management arrangements in place for taking up the proposed engagement with UNFPA through fully developed and capacitated systems i.e. comprehensive Finance, Management & Administration policies and SOPs approved by its BoD. They cover finance, HR, Admin, Procurement, result-based management, environment, Gender, governance & safeguarding. Qualified and adequately trained staff with clear job descriptions and the well-defined reporting channels is in place to ensure the effective and efficient functioning of the systems for timely execution of project activities to accomplish value-added results. An automated financial information system is used to document financial transactions. Financial audits are conducted annually by the firm of auditors approved by the Board. Project-based/ third party auditing is also conducted, whenever required.    

areas-of-intervention

Areas of Intervention: The organization  since its inception in 1993 till to-date has been making persistent efforts on a non-discriminatory basis for increasing social, economic and political inclusion of women, girls (ensuring participation of disabled & non-Muslim women & girls) and other vulnerable social segments including the transgender community into the mainstream developmental process through:  (a) promotion of functional & financial literacy – Detail of the executed projects is attached as Annexure “A” (b) improvement of basic life Competencies & skills in adult women and men( c ) enhancement and diversification training on locally marketable income-generating skills  (d) vocational training, (e )  linkages development and mentoring support for maximizing productivity, employability,  income generation & Social Security benefits (f) knowledge building on entrepreneurship development (g)  development of women-led micro/small enterprises  (h) training on e-marketing and on-line businesses (i) knowledge building about women protection laws (J) enabling women & girls’  to protect themselves from discriminations & violence at home and harassment & exploitation at the workplace (k)  Provision of healthcare facilities (l) facilitation in the issuance of CNICs to women & girls and their registration   as voters (m)  women voter education (n) increasing women voters’ turn out during general/local bodies elections (o) facilitating effective representation of women & other vulnerable ones in decision making in elected formations and functions (p) promoting a culture of accountability of elected representatives and public officeholders and (q) Promotion of formal and non-formal education.

The organization has also been making efforts to enabling women, girls, and the other most vulnerable ones for making the collective organized struggle for securing, protecting and promoting their fundamental rights and raising their voices to be noticed and considered during policy/decision-making processes at all levels.

Geographic coverage: The organization has continuously been making its programmatic interventions in District Sialkot (1993-2021), District Attock (2002-2003), Gujranwala Division (2017-2021) and Sahiwal & Okara districts (2019-2021).

Inputs by Baidarie

Economic Discipline

• Skill enhancement and diversification for women, & girl workers.
• Development  of linkages and working relationship  among trained women & girls workers among financial, technical and market support providers.
• Enabling women & girls to set up  micro/small level enterprises and  run them  profitably.
• Enabling women workers to  do –on-line businesses &  E-Marketing
• Enabling women & girls workers to do career planning and assume leadership  roles in their workplaces and living environment.
• Encouraging women & girls workers to be active & dynamic partners  of in-house committees i.e. grievance  addressing, worker –management council, first aid, & fire safety.
• Educating women & girl workers  to do better financial management at the level of their households and  enterprises.
• Development of linkages between jobless/ trained women and girls with options and spaces for employability.
• Increase in  access for women & girls to the linkages for maximizing productivity and  income  generation.
• Pacing up process of financial inclusion through linkages development with Banking Services.

Social Discipline:

• Protecting women & girls from gender based discriminations & violence in the indoor and outdoor spheres of life.
• Development of basic life skills in male and female youth and adolescents
• Promotion of formal and Non-formal Education for male and female children
• Awareness raising, knowledge building and sensitization in state and society related policy/opinion /decision makers for proactively addressing the issues thwarting gender mainstreaming, equality and justice.
• Capacity building of the grass-root CSOs and other stakeholders to provide legal and social protection to women/girls and children survivors of gender based discriminations and violence.
• Increasing Responsiveness in state & societal legal and social support mechanisms for protection and promotion of the fundamental rights of vulnerable groups and facilitating easy and expedited access to justice for the victims.
• Provision of Healthcare  services  for women, children and senior citizens and promoting hygienic living patterns.

Civic Rights

• Facilitation in issuance of CNICs to women & girls,
• Registration of women & girls voters ,
• Women Voter education:  Increasing awareness for exercising their right to vote after assessing ability of the election contestants  for their legally ordained roles and responsibilities.
• Increase in women voters turnout
• Encouraging women, youth, peasants and workers to be effective and efficient part of formation and functions of the local government entities.
• Capacity development of the elected representatives to ensure functioning of  local  governance entities for effective and efficient service delivery and addressing grievances of the people.
• Promoting trends of assessment of the performance of elected representatives
• Demands for pro-poor and gender-sensitive legislation and enforcement of legal provisions protecting the rights of vulnerable ones.,