Published: 12:34 AM, 16 October 2026
Transforming Lives Through Best Practices of Project Management
Chowdhury Naim Ahmed Mujib
Many community development projects begin with a simple goal: to make people’s lives better. But turning a good idea into real and lasting change requires more than commitment. It requires careful planning, clear responsibilities, effective coordination, regular monitoring and the ability to learn and adapt along the way. This is where good project management becomes essential.
Strong project management helps ensure that the right activities reach the right people at the right time and that resources are used effectively. It also makes it possible to measure progress, identify challenges early and make improvements when needed. When these practices are followed well, projects can create greater impact and offer lessons that can be applied in other communities.
The Bangladesh Project Management Symposium & Awards, organized by the PMI Bangladesh Chapter, recognize projects and project professionals that demonstrate excellence in project management, innovation, execution and impact.
This year, Grameen Danone Foods Limited, popularly known as Shokti+, received two Champion titles at the Bangladesh Project Management Awards. Its Transforming Lives Through Nutrition (TLTN) Project, under the partnership with IDE Bangladesh in Sylhet, was named Champion Project of the Year, while Purba Chowdhury Joya was recognized as Champion Project Manager of the Year in Social Impact category.
Surayya Siddiqua, Managing Director of Grameen Danone Foods Limited, said, “For us, creating impact means understanding the needs of the community and building solutions that can work in their everyday lives. Strong project management helps turn that understanding into action by bringing people, resources and activities together with a clear purpose. Most importantly, it helps us learn what works and build models that can be adapted to reach more communities.”
The TLTN Project implemented by IDE Bangladesh focused on improving nutrition awareness and access to fortified food while building stronger community-level distribution. What makes the project particularly relevant is the way it brought together education, community engagement and local capacity building instead of relying on a single intervention.
Through this project Grameen Danone Foods Limited engaged children through school campaigns and mother through community discussions where nutrition messages were delivered through educational videos, interactive sessions and quizzes. These activities helped make nutrition easier for children to understand and encouraged them to participate rather than simply listen.
Mothers and other community members were engaged through 58 Uthan Boithok sessions, creating spaces where people could discuss nutrition, ask questions and learn together. The project also conducted seven school campaigns, bringing nutrition education directly into the communities where children and families live.
Another important part of the project was the training of 64 Nutrition Entrepreneurs. They received training on nutrition, product knowledge, hygiene, communication, facilitation and sales. By developing local people as trained resources, the project created a stronger connection between communities and nutrition-related products and information.
Through these activities, the project reached more than 1,750 students and 1,250 mothers, while more than 5,000 community members were reached indirectly.
These numbers are important because malnutrition cannot be addressed simply by providing food or information once. It requires people to understand the importance of nutrition, families to have access to better choices, and communities to have trusted people who can continue sharing that knowledge. The TLTN Project brought these elements together through a structured and coordinated approach.
The project therefore offers more than a successful local intervention. Its approach has the potential to serve as a model for similar nutrition programs in other underserved communities. The methods used by TLTN; working through schools, engaging mothers and communities, building local capacity and creating community-level networks can be adapted to different social and cultural settings.
At a time when malnutrition remains a major challenge in many parts of the world, projects that can demonstrate practical, community-based solutions are particularly valuable. A model such as TLTN can provide useful lessons for organizations, development partners and communities looking for ways to make nutrition education and access more effective and sustainable.
For such projects to succeed at a larger scale, however, good ideas must be supported by good project management. Clear objectives, realistic planning, defined roles, strong partnerships, continuous monitoring and community participation are what help transform an initiative from a one-time program into an approach that can be repeated and improved.
Reflecting on the importance of project management in creating such impact, Purba Chowdhury Joya said, “Good project management is not only about completing activities on time. It is about having a clear purpose, understanding the needs of the people we are trying to serve, bringing the right partners together and continuously learning from what is happening on the ground. When these practices are in place, a project becomes more organized, more accountable and more likely to create lasting impact.”
Purba’s recognition as ‘Champion Project Manager of the Year’ in the Social Impact Category further highlights the importance of strong leadership in making development projects work effectively. Her recognition, alongside TLTN’s Project of the Year title, demonstrates that successful projects depend both on the strength of the model and on the people responsible for turning that model into action.
The recognition of the TLTN Project shows how effective project management can support meaningful social impact. More importantly, its approach offers a practical example of how nutrition projects can be designed to engage communities, strengthen local capacity and create measurable results. With adaptation to local needs, such best practices have the potential to be replicated beyond Sylhet and contribute to the wider effort to fight malnutrition in communities around the world.
Chowdhury Naim Ahmed
Mujib is a communications consultant at an NGO
in Bangladesh.
