Gono Unnayan Prochesta

Putting Peace at the heart of regeneration in Bangladesh

1660:Quakers believed in peace when they declared to Charles II “Our principle is, and our practices have always been, to seek peace and ensue it...” (QFP 24.04)
1974:Quaker relief work after the 1971 War of Liberation in Bangladesh in which 3 million people died evolved into the locally-managed self-help organisation Gono Unnayan Prochesta (GUP).
1986:Ataur Rahman, GUP’s founding executive director – encouraged by Quakers’ vision of peace training in tackling poverty, injustice and violence – founded Shanti Kendra (The Peace Centre) within GUP.
2007:Responding to a request from S A Wahab, GUP’s current executive director, Quakers in Settle, Yorkshire, U.K. offered to help raise funds to rebuild the Peace Library and make extensive repairs to Shanti Kendra’s other buildings.




GUP is now a flourishing, highly active NGO, respected internationally for achievements including:

  • development programmes that cover or have covered a cumulative population of over a million persons
  • a formal policy which gives priority to women partners and beneficiaries
  • over 144,000 people involved in farming and forestry
  • over 11,000 landless and marginalised people assisted in forming cooperatives
  • some 7,000 participants in micro-credit programmes

The success of these programmes has been primarily due to the leaders, partners and beneficiaries within GUP, helped by donors whose financial support and advice has been invaluable. But it is the continuing friendship with Quakers from Britain, America, Canada and Australia which has been particularly helpful in encouraging the establishment of a Peace Centre. Members of the GUP leadership team have participated in courses at Woodbrooke and are now members of the South Asian Peace Alliance which QPSW helped to establish. Shanti Kendra has thereby helped to keep peace at the heart of regeneration in Bangladesh. The work of Shanti Kendra is highly regarded. The UN organisation ESCAP (2003) says:

“Shanti Kendra, founded in 1986, has won credibility for its work in its own right both within Bangladesh and internationally. The Centre offers research and training facilities to national and international peace workers and also has developed an approach to community and family mediation and conciliation. Its joining of native Bengali and international Quaker ideals makes Shanti Kendra and its programmes a potentially vital player in Bangladesh and in the South Asian community as a whole.”

Settle Friends have accepted the responsibility of helping supporters throughout the world to raise the funds to ensure that this work continues to flourish. The most immediate need is to construct a new library / training room with additional staff accommodation and to repair the existing training facilities and accommodation for a total cost of approximately £12,000. But we hope to raise substantially more than this to place the work of Shanti Kendra on a more secure financial basis.


Can you help keep peace at the heart of regeneration in Bangladesh?

More information is given Shanti Kendra on the following pages: