Keeping Pace with Climate Change
A community approach to spreading awareness about preparedness
The World Bank has reported that in the last five decades global CO2 emission has almost quadrupled thereby massively affecting climate change. According to National Geographic, Bangladesh is one the most vulnerable nations to the impacts of this climate change. Particularly susceptible are the people living in the islands of riverine Bangladesh who have no other options but to try and adapt to the harsh conditions of the climatic impact. Reinforcing resilience and strengthening the speed of climate change adaptation is the on-going challenge we have and the only way to win this battle against time is to deploy our actions quicker than the climate change itself. We can only do so by strengthening the role of the people themselves in spreading the solutions.
“We used to have to jerry-rig a shelter out of bamboo and tarp and leaves and brambles and whatever we could find. It was just something we’d accepted as a reality of life, however, given our financial conditions.” Marium says.
Musammat Marium Begum is a portly, toothsome woman approaching middle age, who lives with her husband and 3 children by the riverside in Jatrapur char. A mudbrick ramp leads up to her dwelling, 2 huts across from each other with a yard in the middle, a tube well in one corner, and a latrine in the other. Not 10 metres from her house is a shimmering stream; slender boats bobbing with the gentle breeze. It betrays the menacing floods that are commonplace with heavy rains, a too-oft phenomenon in the tropical country that is Bangladesh.
Far from infrastructure or access, these riverine islands come and go with the tides. The dwellings as they used to be built were made of weak materials on flat land, and were washed away by floods every year. The repeated reset to zero took a massive toll on the lives, livelihoods and living conditions of the char. In an effort to reduce the damage from flooding and storms that is endemic to these northern char regions of the country, Friendship has developed a Climate Change Adaptation program
“They helped out with construction materials including the corrugated tin for the roof which we couldn’t find, and also helped us plan and build the house. They’re the ones who installed the tube well and the latrine and coached us on how to use it properly. We’d drink contaminated water regularly and didn’t wash properly, and got sick a lot. Friendship helped with the logistics to build the new house. We dug the foundation ourselves, and raised it according to the training we were given. Put the latrine and tube well on raised mounds as well, and placed them strategically. We had no idea that that was even a necessity”, Marium says.
Friendships Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Management sector provides training and advices on how to build and maintain more permanent, stronger structures, along with all the preparedness training to climate vulnerable villages.
“I want to help other people like me. I tell all my neighbours and friends to attend the meetings, and try to relay what I’ve learned on a day-to-day basis,” says Marium.
“It is another battle won for us. Given the certainty, disasters need not result in enormous suffering and loss of life every year if only we prepare to face them in advance,” says Kazi Amdadul Hoque, Head of Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Management, Friendship.
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