with the Christian Commission for Development Bangladesh (CCDB) and participants in Shyamnagar, Bangladesh
Engage: Women’s Empowerment and Active Citizenship is a 6.5 year initiative co-designed by Coady Institute and five partner organizations in India, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Bangladesh, and Haiti. Coady is a convenor and is bringing these partners together in ways that they can share their expertise, learn from each other, and collectively explore new approaches and tools.
The project works primarily to support the leadership capacity of informal sector women in addressing key issues they are facing. This includes the future of work faced by women; engaging women in community governance; women’s leadership and feminist approaches, young women as entrepreneurs and agents of community change; and asset-based approaches to reducing urban and rural poverty through economic development.
Shyamnagar, Bangladesh
Shyamnagar is a rural community on the edge of the world’s largest mangrove forest and the people living there deal with the extreme effects of climate change daily. Through Engage, CCDB has assisted these women with climateresilient farming techniques and fostered leadership skills to progress gender equality.
During a site visit, some of the women participated in a photovoice exercise, taking photos that assisted in explaining their stories and narratives. When taking these photos, the question posed was, “What would you want a Canadian to know about your life?”. For each, the first photo shows a challenge they faced in their lives, and the second explains how the Engage Project has positively affected that challenge.
Greetings everyone, my name is Sudpta Mondol.
The main problem in our area is drinking water. We fetch water from far away and then filter the water to use for cooking, drinking, and other needs.
We took this picture to represent the conditions in Bangladesh. Changes from the Engage project are in the second picture.
From the Engage project we received training in climate resilient farming, training in vermicompost, support with seeds, and we have used these in the field to meet our needs. After meeting our needs, we can also sell the vegetables at the market. Through the changes we became financially independent, and we can support our family. The training taught us to use spare space in our homes to grow these vegetables, meaning that both my husband and I can support our families.
Right now, we are in the dry season, and you can see that the soil is cracked and dry. Water scarcity is big, and the local ponds are dry. When we go to the pond to fetch water for washing and cooking, there is no water to get. Drinking water is a big problem. The change we have seen through Engage is that we work together whether we are Hindu or Muslim or any religion. Earlier, we would discriminate on the basis of religion and, after Engage came, we started to work together and now we don’t discriminate.
Greetings everyone. As you can see the soil where we are in the Southern part of Bangladesh isn’t in very good condition. We did climate resilient farming and learned how to garden. From this we can grow food at home for our family and sell extra to earn money.
Through the training we came to know what seeds to use, what farming practices would work best, and now can grow food for ourselves and to sell.
We are Bengali women and before the project we wouldn’t go out. We weren’t confident to go out and meet people outside our family. If people came to our house, we would put on the veil and go inside From the pictures we wanted to show you what our condition was before Engage. Before, we didn’t engage in any business or deal with family money.
Engage gave us several trainings and now we earn alongside our husbands. Now we go outside, we can open our shops, we can meet people. I now have a shop myself.
ENGAGE! Women’s Empowerment and Active Citizenship is supported by Global Affairs Canada
