Keeping the climate change summit to be held in Copenhagen in perspective, two UK ministers visited Bangladesh recently and went to a char in Sirajganj to see the lives of the char dwellers – at the forefront of the climate change impact – changed for the better with UK financial aid supporting Bangladeshi knowledge and technology.     

Interview taken and written by Towheed Feroze

A little after nine in the morning, the sun becomes baking hot and the landscape of the chars is like a fire-drenched plateau. During summer, the heat is intense, when monsoon comes, water level rises submerging lands, and if there is a flood, life on the chars become paralysed; in winter, the cold is biting. Life, at the Chaluhara Char in Sirajganj is hard.

But, overcoming hardship, people live here and despite the harsh treatment of nature, they can look forward to carrying on with life, thanks to the multifaceted interventions from the Char Livelihoods Programme, funded by the UK Government through its Department for International Development (DFID).

 

 

Taslima, 22, and a mother of two children is a char dweller and today she can relate her woes of the past with a smile because she knows that the future does not look so bleak.

‘Before 2004, monsoon meant flooding and the inevitable inundation of our houses and crop lands,’ recalls Taslima and adds that during those trying times their lives came to a complete standstill cursed by shortage of food, water and the most important element for survival - hope.

‘My husband used to work as a weaver in a weaving factory but when the flood came in 2003, the machines went under water and our income was severely hampered.’

As a result, we had to face acute agony for a period of about three weeks because we did not know whether we should save our house or go out to seek some kind of living, adds Taslima.

The char housewife also says that though her husband had an income of Tk400 per week, during floods that earning was almost non-existent.

‘Without money, we could not buy food and remoteness of the char prevented us from travelling to the main towns,’ observes Taslima. 

But life for the char dwellers has seen noteworthy improvement due to the interventions funded by the UK and today Taslima looks to the days ahead with hope.

With UK aid, the platform level of char houses has been raised on plinths and they are safe from flood water levels.  

‘But, apart from this we have also had lifestyle changing training on sanitation, hygiene, evils of child marriage, maternal health, nutrition and so on,’ says Taslima and adds by saying that these changes have reduced mortality rates, improved health, which have eventually made living on the chars better.

With access to freshwater from tube-wells, Taslima believes that in the last four years the dramatic change in lifestyle has been good but feels that these changes need to be permanent.

‘One problem still persists and that is river erosion and if this is countered then life on the chars will become permanent and we will be able to live here forever,’ says Taslima.

She does not know the meaning of sustainable but feels that a permanent solution to erosion is essential.

Talking to the visiting UK ministers for international development and climate change, Douglas Alexander and Ed Miliband respectively, Taslima expressed optimism about tackling caprices of monsoon but she also pointed to the needs for dealing with erosion. 

‘Due to erosion, we are always on the move and though out lifestyle has seen beneficial changes, we are always living on the edge for fear of having to go to another char.’ 

But the young mother also adds that if erosion is dealt with then their lives will never be on the borders of poverty again.

‘On the contrary, we shall then dream of becoming wealthy and fully satisfied.’