From garment factories to national policy
Nari Uddug Kendra (NUK) — translated as the "Centre for Women's Initiatives" — was established in 1991 as a national non-government women's organisation. Its mandate has remained consistent across more than three decades: to promote gender equality, human rights, and the personal and political empowerment of women and girls in Bangladesh.
NUK began its work at a pivotal moment for Bangladesh's economy. As the ready-made garment (RMG) sector expanded rapidly through the 1990s, it drew millions of young women into factory work — often with little protection, low pay, and no formal voice in workplace decisions. NUK was among the first Bangladeshi organisations to take up garment workers' rights and labour conditions as a core program area, providing basic education, health care, and safe shelter alongside advocacy for safer, fairer workplaces.
From factory health care to community hospitals
For NUK's first fifteen years, much of its health work happened inside garment factories themselves. As that on-site care matured, NUK transferred direct factory health services to factory management and shifted its own health programming toward underserved rural communities — building the Egarosindur Community Hospital and Kishoreganj Eye Hospital in Kishoreganj district, followed by a newer eye hospital serving the low-income, migrant-worker community of Savar Upazila near Dhaka.
Building women's political voice
Alongside labour and health work, NUK has invested heavily in capacity-building for women's leadership in local government. Bangladesh's union parishad councils reserve seats for women, but reserved seats do not automatically translate into real influence — so NUK trains elected women representatives, supports their networking with one another, and advocates for stronger institutional roles for women across all 64 districts.
Vision
NUK's long-term vision is to empower women and girls to understand their individual rights, to act collectively, and to advance gender equality through education, networking, and advocacy at the state, society, and community levels.
Development goal
NUK's immediate development goal is to support women's leadership and representation — in local government, education institutions, the workplace, and at the national level — with sufficient critical mass to shift social norms and development policy in favour of women.
Guiding principles
- Independence — program decisions are guided by community need.
- Inclusion — reaching urban garment workers and rural communities alike.
- Innovation — new approaches to entrenched problems of inequality.
- Non-confrontation — building coalitions with factories, officials, and communities rather than working against them.
- Adding value — filling genuine service gaps rather than duplicating existing programs.
- Empowerment — treating women as agents of change, not only beneficiaries.
- Value for money — operating efficiently on stretched donor funding.
Legal status
NUK is registered as a national women's NGO under the Societies Act XXI-1860 (registration S-3228) and with the NGO Affairs Bureau of the Government of Bangladesh under the Foreign Donation (Voluntary Activities) Regulation Ordinance, 1978.