Our Mission

Taungya believes in cultural pluralism and basic rights of all peoples and communities.

  • Cultural Pluralism:

The organization has members from various indigenous peoples of Chittagong Hill Tracts and from among the Bengali-speaking residents of CHT. The members are in various professions, i.e. educationists, cultural activists, journalists, lawyers, physicians, engineers, businesspeople, etc. IT believes in the rights of al peoples, and seeks to help protect the culture and rights of those indigenous peoples with small populations.

 

  • Self-Reliance:

Taungya believes that programmes on socio-economic activities can bring sustainable and culturally appropriate progress in the long run only through local self-reliant initiatives. It therefore, believes in having a clear exit strategy prior to making any project interventions. It works only with the consent of communities and is totally against creating unsustainable external dependencies.

 

  • Community Empowerment:

It believes in strengthening the CHT communities, especially those who live in “remote” areas. It is respectful towards the strong communitarian traditions of the indigenous peoples and promotes cooperative and collective efforts by drawing upon ancient indigenous customs and traditions while employing modern day information technology wherever appropriate and available.

  • Equity

It strongly believes in human rights and the principle of equity. It promotes eradication of racial and religious discrimination and the eradication of discrimination against women. It tries to address the needs of socially and physically disadvantaged groups. It also seeks to respect different generations and the rights of children.

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Vision Of Taungya

In order to ensure that Taungya is successful in achieving its stated goals it is important that Taungya has a fair idea of the likely nature of social, cultural and economic changes in the coming years and decades. These developments will no doubt be both positive and negative. Other changes will be value-neutral or combine aspects of both positive and negative elements. We intend to keep these likely developments in mind when planning any type of interventions. Some changes seem almost inevitable. These include improvements in transport and communications, advances in communications technology, easier marketing of farm produce, and greater social mobility. On the positive side we see better prices for farmers, greater access to health services and education, greater gender sensitivity and cheaper and more accessible tele and cyber communications. On the negative side, we see rising differences of income, land alienation of indigenous communities, marginalisation of poor farmers and unskilled labourers, ethnic and class conflicts, food insecurity and environmental degradation (including deforestation and mining activities). Other changes include in-migration and out-migration, greater social mobility, greater social interaction between different ethnic and religious groups, further urbanization, etc. The above permutations are based on the assumption that the forces of globalization will continue to shape economic policies in Bangladesh and lead to the faster monetisation and marketisation of the CHT.

Even if the process of globalization that is currently taking place is weakened or reversed in the near future, we feel that the CHT will still continue to be integrated into the Bangladeshi market. at a very fast pace . This is because the CHT is still rich in natural resources. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to ensure that CHT society can achieve at least moderate success in human development. Without educational progress, social and economic progress will not be possible, and the people of the CHT will continue to be marginalized politically as well. Thereby, their cultural integrity will also be threatened.

We mention many areas in our policy goals, but we are aware that it is not possible for Taungya to work on all or even most of the aforesaid issues in the next few years. Therefore, our Action Plan will fine-tune in on our proposed activities in the short, middle and long terms.  We are aware that priorities may also change over time.

Taungya intends to be a catalyst towards the articulation of the development perspectives of the people of the CHT and their views on indigenous culture and environment, among other things. Therefore, it is important that Taungya’s work has an impact on the greatest number of people possible. However, Taungya realizes that given the shortcomings of a voluntary organization, it will not be possible to be in direct contact with the entire population of the CHT. Therefore, the emphasis will be to combine efforts aimed at reaching the greatest number of people directly, through specific projects and dialogues, and through indirect means such as networking with other organizations and through its research and advocacy activities. Formal and informal publications will play a key role in this regard.