Bangladesh and the stories of resilience of its people are known to all. Time and again we have been tested and people have jointly taken part in overcoming the barriers.
Their innate potential was the key to this success, which was supported and nurtured by different initiatives from organizations like ActionAid Bangladesh, working as catalysts in the journey.
Many organic leaders have come up from the community over the years as a result of these efforts, who are spreading and spearheading the positive changes in the community now.
Hasina Begum hails from Naogaon district. She was married at the age of 14 and now is an active advocate against child marriage. Nine years into her marriage, her husband left her with five daughters. Instead of grieving the loss and dealing with the shock, she immediately had to start looking for a job to provide for her family. She managed a job of a house-help at one of her neighbour’s houses and became the sole earner of the family since then.
She attributes child marriage for tarnishing her life, and therefore wanted to work to prevent child marriage in her community. Her journey started with BDO (Barendra Development Organization), a local partner of ActionAid Bangladesh, in 2012. Gradually she gained knowledge on women’s rights, empowerment, human rights, and other issues like khas land. This ignited an interest in Hasina to engage in solidarity with marginalized communities, particularly women, to encourage them to claim their rights.
Manifestation of her leadership skills earned her a special place within the group, who selected Hasina as the president of the group. In this role Hasina has arbitrated 200 domestic violence cases and stopped 35 child marriages in her community. One of her biggest achievements was to influence the authorities to allocate khas land for the landless in 2014. Eight bighas of khas land and settlements for 60 families were secured. In recognition of the efforts made by Hasina, the community named the settlement “Hasina Polli.”
In 2020 Hasina lobbied and secured another five decimals of khas land for the community. There were five ponds on khas land of some 27 bighas. This land and the ponds were illegally occupied.
Three hundred and fifteen marginalized women are now practicing fish-culture in the ponds, which has enabled them to become financially independent.
On January 5, 2021, Hasina was elected as the member of the Union Parishad, with a huge margin, and has been serving the community ever since.
Rani Begum from Gobindaganj upazila joined “Laalgolap Naari Krishok Dol,” a reflection circle formed by ActionAid Bangladesh from her interest of working for the community. She has been selected as the only female member of the local “Masjid Committee” in her community. It has been possible because of her leadership in tackling social issues, including violence against women, child-marriage, women empowerment, and in promoting sustainable agriculture.
Kra Nu Ching Marma from Thanchi, Bandarban, a strong advocate of climate justice in her community, has demonstrated her leadership skills in multiple ways. She lives in an area susceptible to natural calamities, therefore with the “Bagan Reflect Action Circle” members, she undertook preparedness measures to reduce their vulnerability to disasters with the very limited resources they had. They planted 2,000 trees on the slope of adjacent hills to prevent landslides and protect the community from cyclones.
She also played an iconic role in instilling the concepts of women empowerment, gender equality and disaster management in her community. She advocated with local authorities for disbursement of old-age allowance to 53 senior citizens, helped 41 widows receive widow allowance, and distributed 41 VGD cards (vulnerable group development cards).
Through her relentless advocacy with the local government, she also managed to secure Food for Work (FFW) service for many in her community.
Moriom Begum is from Kalapara at Patuakhali, an area that is highly susceptible to high tidal surges, cyclones, and floods. Moriom wanted to protect her community, therefore joined AVAS (Association of Voluntary Actions for Society), a local partner of ActionAid Bangladesh, to learn more about disaster preparedness, response, rehabilitation, and development.
She had made her mark already in her community, having received several DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction) and advocacy training. She now leads Women-Led Emergency Response-WLER, an organizational strategy of ActionAid Bangladesh to advance women’s leadership and skills across all levels, including within local rights partners, and has shown extraordinary leadership skills in managing emergency responses.
She was involved in 10 responses so far, where she participated in budget preparation, participants’ selection, purchase and distribution of relief and rehabilitation materials, supervising the construction and reconstruction operations, and evaluating the overall response.
We are seeing the emergence of grassroot leaders from urban areas as well.
Saleha Begum, originally hailing from Bhola and presently living in Kallyanpur informal settlement in Dhaka, has demonstrated her leadership qualities through participation in volunteerism with the help of NDBUS (Nagar Daridra Basteebashir Unnayan Sangstha), a local partner of ActionAid Bangladesh.
She was trained there and as a result was able to participate when there were fire incidents in the Kallyanpur informal settlement. Given Saleha’s real life experience of seeing the impacts of unpreparedness and lack of response mechanism in the informal settlements, she was determined to work for bringing a change for the community.
She is one of the 50 people in the informal settlement who have actively participated in response operations. Saleha has also prevented six child marriages and actively works against violence against women and children in her informal settlement.
The stories of these five incredible women, all from the grassroot, exemplify the innate power they possess and their commitment to building a better society. Their leadership strengthens the resilience of the community from where they hail. This is exactly why ActionAid Bangladesh continues to engage with and invest in these women from the grassroots.
Farah Kabir is Country Director, ActionAid Bangladesh.
