Our vision:

To create an enabling environment for migrant workers across borders, irrespective of gender and legal status, and for those who are affected by climate change hazards.

Our mission:

To bring migrants’ voices and perspectives in the migration discourse, policy formulation and implementation of the migrant friendly laws

Our mandates:

• promote informed migration by choice
• safeguard rights, wellbeing and justice of labour migrants as well as climate migrants and survivors
• espouse sustainable reintegration and livelihoods of returnees and climate induced youth and women
• bring the voice and the perspectives of migrants and climate induced communities by creating agency and empowerment
• promote evidence-based research and policy advocacy at different levels

Our Key Intervention Approaches:

Our key interventions cover the whole cycle of migration from pre-decision to predeparture, onsite as well as return and reintegration. We focus on empowerment of migrants and their families through awareness and pre-departure services to make migration informed, safe and responsible. We provide need-based tailored support and assistance including psycho-social counselling, safe home, health treatment, legal aid, and life skills training, skills and entrepreneurship development training (EDT) to the vulnerable returnee migrant workers through our intensive case management activities.

We have targeted interventions to organize returnee migrant workers and families to create a community-led protection for migrants (both potential and returnee migrants) through dissemination of information and referrals for services.

Our Core Values:

• Commitment: Being the part of the migrants’ community, we are whole-heartedly committed to the migrants and their families/communities for their sustainable development
• Integrity: The OKUP team members hold ‘integrity’ by heart and expose it at every stage of delivery of services to the migrant workers and their families/communities.
• Accountability: OKUP practices accountability by ensuring that all employees at every level from management to field workers are responsible for their actions, behaviours, performance and decisions in their daily work. Three core policies – (i) financial management policy including procurement policy, fraud and risk management policy; (ii) human resource policy, and (iii) safeguarding policy are strictly followed to ensure accountability of the organization.
• Transparency: We, as an organization, are very open and transparent to share information, respond to questions, allow any visit without notice, financial monitoring/audit, receive feedback, etc.
• Innovation: Being a migrant organization, we always put priority on the needs and the perspectives of the migrant workers and their communities including culture, social norms, beliefs and practices. Hence, our programmatic interventions always focus on innovations linked to the needs and the perspectives of the targeted people.

OKUP GEOGRAPHICAL COVERAGE

OKUP has strong presence in 52 upazilas under 18 districts. The programmatic interventions in some upazilas have currently been closed due to phase out of a few projects. OKUP has organized the Migrant Forums, community volunteer groups in all districts listed below which extends outreach at the rural settings even after the project is phased out in some districts. This is to mention that under the ILO’s Skills-21 project, OKUP has access to other districts in Bangladesh in collaboration with partner organizations.