Social Enterprise Sector
Flood inundates the northern districts of Bangladesh every monsoon in the form of disaster. Reversibly, there is prevalence of drought in each dry season. Most miseries in the people’s life is river erosion and this renders a large number of people homeless, land-less, asset-less and loss of belongings. Alongside, the northern districts experience social problems like dowry, polygamy, abandoned wife, early marriage, physical & mental torture, etc. These also contribute to poor health, nutrition, education and recreation of the people especially the children. Based on its mission, SKS Foundation has taken initiatives and promoting various socio-economic and peoples’ welfare ventures under its Social Enterprise Sector. The Social Enterprise ventures have been contributing to the promotion of health, education & recreation facilities as well as job openings for the local people.
SKS Foundation has so far been running the Social Enterprises including SKS Hospital for serving especially the low & middle-income people with general health services. SKS Hospital is also well-acknowledged for its quality & economic services having Health Premium Scheme and free cataract operation for the poor patients. The SKS School & College, and SKS Nutonkuonri Biddyapith have been promoting quality education among the students living in Gaibandha town & surrounding areas, and Saghata upazila respectively. Both the institutions have proven their standard achieving cent percent success in public examinations. The SKS Inn continues as an attractive resort with recreative facilities for family function, business events, training programs, social gatherings, cultural events, etc. There are some outreach media namely Radio Sarabela, Dainik Madhukar, e-madhukar and SKS Printers, which are meeting the information & communication needs of the people in Gaibandha and adjacent districts. The Social Enterprises are running maintaining quality & accountability. As a result, Radio Sarabela has won national and international awards while SKS Inn has been acknowledged with the Best Tax Payer award from the Government of Bangladesh. The Social Enterprises have received civil society appreciations as these establishments are mainly serving the local community; and the demand for such services is on rise. Emphasizing more on the institutional shape and diversity in growth, the underlying themes of this Sector are as follows:
- Quality education for all
- Vocational training with ICT focus
- Quality health services for all
- Media outreach
- Eyecare services
- Nursing education
- Child recreation service
- Disability rehabilitation