I’ve recently returned to Australia after a
brief visit to Bangladesh. It was a time
filled with meetings, lots of rice and curry, visiting field projects, catching
planes, trains and dodging traffic. A 16 hour journey that started in Dhaka at
7am, a train and two cars later arriving in Cox’s Bazaar at 11pm was definitely
one for the books. But upon reflection, most importantly it was a trip that
left me inspired by humanity, while opening my eyes to delve deeper into
serious development issues and challenges.
Bangladesh is a Country facing many challenges
including corruption, poverty and is also widely recognised as one of the country’s most vulnerable to climate change. It’s however stunning and very
easy to take an interesting picture with all the colours, activity and mayhem.
It has an enormous coastline and marsh and mangrove jungles which are home to
the endangered Bengal tiger. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see one!
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| -For now, it's play time!- |
The projects I help support vary in focus and
objective, though to give you a brief idea they include working towards the
development of a National CBR (Community Based Rehabilitation) Strategy, Flash
Flood Relief and Rehabilitation, Disaster Risk Reduction and Promotion Of Human
Rights for persons with disabilities which involves the formation and
development of Self Help Groups for Women and People with Disabilities.
-Program staff Shahnawaz, Bari and myself during a Self Help Group meeting-
The rural communities I visited in both North
and Southern Bangladesh have very little infrastructure with poor to no access
to health and education services. So what usual story? Well add in poor access to fresh water,
energy, fuel, transport, and lacking opportunity to generate income for men and
women to provide for their families. These communities and homes are also flooded
nearly every year by flash floods across the country. Most rural communities rely
on agriculture and subsistence farming for their primary income eg rice, jute,
tea. For families, this is what mostly
keeps them going.
In many cases though, people with disabilities
(men, women, and children) face additional barriers because of impairment that
may prevent them from accessing services, becoming independent, get an
education, and develop a livelihood or form of income. Imagine if you were
unable to walk, had no access to assistive devices (eg wheelchair), even if you
had a wheelchair the roads and buildings are not wheelchair accessible, no
health insurance or doctors, community and social barriers (stigma, cultural
beliefs) associated with having a disability, no public transport or cars
available for support are all added to the list of challenges faced. This
hopefully creates a picture of why the most poor and vulnerable people in the
world are often (not always) those with a disability.
These are just some of the issues these
projects aim to address and in particular ways. One of the many inspirational
outcomes I’ve seen from the implementation of these projects is the formation
of Self Help Groups for Women and People with Disabilities. These Self Help
Groups include members of the community who are either someone with an
impairment or are a relative of someone with a disability. These group members
have received training in human rights, the UN Convention of Rights of Persons
with disabilities (UNCRPD), leadership, local advocacy and government systems
and processes. This is to ensure that these members own and are responsible for
their own development, which allow their communities and local governments to
become aware of these rights and ultimately improve the current situation for
women and people with disabilities. It also allows for members to generate
their own savings and possibly develop their own livelihood projects.
- A womens Self Helf Group meeting in a village near Cox's Bazaar-
There’s much more going on here, and a limit to what I can post on the blog, but wanted to
provide a brief snapshot to what I saw and experienced. It was a privilege seeing
first hand the changes made, and how something as simple
as leadership and training in human rights have empowered these people to speak
up not only for themselves but to act as voices for other vulnerable people in
their communities. In the end its results like these that make it all worth it.
Happy reading!
Best wishes,
Luke Purcell
