UST History 

Lunching of UST: Unnayan Shahojogy Team (UST) was founded in June 1986 as a non-profitable Non-Government Organization by Dr. Hamidul Huq - to help the poor and disadvantaged women empowering them through awareness building and skill development training to become self-reliant. At that time most of the people in UST working areas (remote Char areas of deltaic Bangladesh) were very poor, had no opportunity to send their children for education, they faced hardship to maintain their livelihoods, couldn't meet basic needs. Women were oppressed and vulnerable. UST unearthed a gloomy picture of the society, where there was widespread poverty.  People couldn't manage food for thrice or even twice a day. People used to borrow money from the rich and ultimately embraced the curse of becoming landless poor. Most of the people couldn't get 1850 kcal per day in their meal. 

Mr. Huq attended the international Leadership Training course at the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) in Silang, Cavite, Phillipines in 1982 and got familiar with fourfold integrated approach to rural construction, based on the vulnerability of people and new learning from IIRR stimulated him to initiate a new dimension of people-oriented development efforts. Thus Mr. Huq launched UST for promoting people-oriented development programmes with strong support from his friends and colleagues.

UST had in her Board, some experienced professionals like Taherunnessa Abdulla to contribute in shaping the program and policy of UST. Shah Md. Anowar Kamal, present Executive Director of UST, also joined the endeavor of launching the organization and has been working for UST since then.

UST started its field operations on January 1987 in four Upazilas: Sonargaon Upazila of Narayangonj district, Sadar Upazila of Tangail district, Shaghata and Sadar Upazilas of Gaibandha district. Gradually it expanded its operation over other districts, even through her partner organizations.