Building Bridges event held by Sajida Foundation

Sajida Foundation organised an event titled Building Bridges at a city hotel on March 13th. It was hosted by the Chairperson of its Governing Body, Farooq Sobhan, former Foreign Secretary; Chairman, Board of Trustees of the Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility and co-founder of the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute. The core objective of the event was to provide key external stakeholders with a comprehensive overview of the work carried out by SAJIDA Foundation, to forge new connections and explore new collaboration opportunities with potential partners.

Sajida Foundation is a non-profit organisation with a focus on serving marginalised communities through multi-sectoral development programmes, such as microfinance, health services, including mental health, extreme poverty alleviation, and climate change. The Foundation has over 5,500 staff, with an annual gross budget of over USD 1.1 billion for the 2022-2023 financial year, including microfinance. Sajida USA has been incorporated recently for networking and fundraising purposes. Due diligence processes have been initiated for inception in three African nations.

Speaking on the occasion, Sajida Foundation's Chief Executive Officer, Zahida Fizza Kabir said, "Our founder, Syed Humayun Kabir had a strong moral compass with a heightened sense of compassion and empathy for those less fortunate. Armed with his core belief in philanthropy and his firm commitment to giving back to the community, he believed that honing our understanding of poverty would enable us to better serve the needs of the poor and marginalised. It is this belief system that has structured SAJIDA Foundation's unique set of values and the shared vision for change to build a more equitable society."

Chairperson of Sajida Foundation's Governing Body, Farooq Sobhan said, "Over the years, Sajida Foundation has built up its programme interventions by undertaking self-financed pilot projects. It is from the learning experiences, empirical evidence and course corrections generated from these pilot projects that we seek to scale up some of our programmes with additional funding from the private sector, philanthropic organisations at home and abroad, as well as our development partners. This is where partnerships and building bridges will play a critical role. We hope that Sajida's story will continue to be one of the innovations, and adapting to emerging realities, with the overarching aim of serving the most marginal and underserved communities."