Skip to content

Bangladesh Trip Report

April 7, 2009

By Mahjabeen

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Mahjabeen Chowdhury, PWRDF Asia/Pacific coordinator, has recently returned from Bangladesh where she met with PWRDF partners. PWRDF currently works with three partners in the country who are collectively part of the PWRDF – CIDA health sector program.

  • Church of Bangladesh Social Development Program
  • Jagoroni Chakra Foundation
  • UBIINIG — Policy Research for Development Alternative

Sustainable Food Production and Environmental Management: A way of life

UBINIG, Policy Research for Development Alternative in Bangladesh, is working on their new agriculture movement, Naya Krishi Andolon to enable farmers to reach their goals of a healthy eco-system and a healthy way of life. To date 200,000 farming families have become Nayakrishi farmers and more are joining every day. The underlying principle is the practice of  biodiversity based farming that ensures seasonal crop variety and complements the diet of beef, poultry and fish. This farming method maintains a healthy balance in the eco-system, in the community diet and guarantees pure, sustainable food production. Each household in a farming community produces enough food for its own consumption, has its own seed stock to continue the food production cycle without being dependent on market supply and demand and generates surplus income. Eco-balance is maintained because pesticides and chemical fertilizers are not necessary.
Pesticide and chemical free farming practices allow uncultivated sources of food that have nutritional and medicinal value to thrive. Traditional birth attendants and medicine women known as Dais pass this medicinal knowledge to the next generation. This knowledge and the skills that Dais possess are crucial for the primary and preventative health care of the community. UBINIG is working for recognition of the role played by Dais in maintaining the health of a community that in turn reduces the burden on the mainstream health care system. Dais are being equipped with additional training and a much needed space to come together to share knowledge. They have begun work on the creation of their own community nurseries to grow uncultivated varieties of medicinal plants to ensure their availability. After a capital investment of approximately CDN $ 1,500, UBINIG is working with 500 Dais from across the country.
To practice biodiverse agriculture, farming communities need their own supply of local, indigenous seed varieties. UBINIG’s Naya Krishi Andolon is working towards building seed huts where communities preserve their own seeds and have free access to them especially in times of emergency. Farmers are required to replenish the stock after the harvest to ensure sustainability. Under the current PWRDF-CIDA health sector program, UBINING plans to facilitate the building of 15 seed huts in 15 communities by the year 2011.
UBINIG has reintroduced the traditional `Adhi’ system of cattle rearing as a means of ensuring sustainability for poorer families in farming communities. Under its current program with PWRDF, UBINIG provides 150 families with a female cow. The family will keep the cow for two years, earn income from the sale of the milk and meet the nutritional needs of their families. Within this two-year span, any calf produced by the cow will belong to the family and the mother cow will go on to another family. This ensures the sharing of means and promotes the building of assets by families who need them most.
UBINIG also runs a publishing unit and a bookstore where the good practices of `Naya Krishi’ farming communities are recorded and published together with research results. In turn, these books and documents serve as the basis for the policy advocacy work of UBINIG in support of bio-diversity based farming practices and farmers’ rights to produce their own food. UBINIG’s analysis of all of its work contains a strong gender focus that explains its reputation as a `feminist’ bookstore and publishing house.

Learning and Self-Development Opportunities for Disadvantaged Children in Bangladesh

Jagoroni Chakra Foundation (JCF) is located in Jessore, an area in South West Bangladesh, and creates opportunities for disadvantaged children in the country. Despite the government’s policy of universal primary education, children of sex trade workers, harijans, the low caste, and the poorest of the poor do not have access to education for their children. JCF has opened seven learning centres where these children are enrolled in educational programs and extra curricular activities such as painting, dance and drama. These learning centres engage in innovative and much needed educational methods and counselling as a means of helping these children develop a new perception of themselves and their environment. Children from these centres have won government sponsored and other scholarships that allow them to pursue further mainstream education. Recently the Yuvabadhana Foundation of Thailand awarded a Certificate of Merit to JCF for the children’s outstanding performance at the 12th ‘A World United Through Art’ exhibition. With competitors from 500 schools and 34 countries around the world, 24 children from the JCF education program received awards of merit.
The education and self development made available at the learning centres not only provides these children with their right to an education, it also enables them to take advantage of life opportunities that will lead to improved mental and physical health and well being.
PWRDF has worked with JCF since 2004 and the organization is currently one of the three implementing partners of the three-year PWRDF-CIDA health sector program that began in August 2008. This precondition of health is innovatively understood to be linked to other quality of life aspects in the program.

Small Businesses: Women in Urban Slums Ensuring Family Nutrition, Education and Health

The Church of Bangladesh’s Social Development Program (CBSDP) works with women in urban slums in the capital city of Dhaka. The primary goal is to ensure women’s empowerment by creating income earning opportunities, providing legal assistance, adult literacy opportunities and primary health care education. Before the creation of this program, these women had no source of income or access to knowledge of their rights or how to exercise them. Domestic violence and few human rights added to the problem. They formed their own cooperative society facilitated by CBSDP where they engaged in a savings program that resulted in the creation of a capital fund. They are able to borrow from their own capital funds for small business ventures such as restaurants and home-based catering businesses, rickshaw rentals, tailoring and grocery shops. This has given these women their own income, which is spent on increasing their family’s well being in terms of improved nutrition and better health. Their children are attending school and they now dare to dream of a better future for them. 
Along with the economic support, adult literacy opportunities are provided for these women who in six months acquire basic literacy skills that enable them to keep their own accounts and the records for their businesses and the cooperative. In order to meet their legal needs they have access to CBSDP para-legal field workers who provide legal advice and access to legal services. These women also have opportunities to attend regular discussions on issues affecting their lives enabling them to develop an awareness of various social and political issues and to participate in making change happen to better their lives and that of their children.
Under the current PWRDF-CIDA health sector program 3,500 women will receive training in small business skills, management and leadership over a period of three years. They will also receive micro credit support. The hope is that 70% of the women who start up small businesses will run sustainable businesses.  

All News Posts

For media requests please contact Communications Coordinator Janice Biehn at (416) 924-9199;366.

Asia Pacific Stories

Bangladesh Stories

Featured

Field Blog