Oxfam in Bangladesh

Bandal can transform the life of river and its people

– Bokhtiar Hossain Shishir

My Connection with River

Being grown up by the river Teesta, I always had a deep-rooted connection with the river and its people. I feel much fortunate that I could follow my passion and love for rivers through my work – for the past 10 years, I am engaged in river related activism. My work for rivers and the people living in those river basins took a different turn when I joined a transboundary river governance project known as TROSA at my organization Gana Unnayan Kendra (GUK). Funded by SIDA, the project is an Oxfam initiative. Right from the early days of my engagement with the project, I started to explore different dimensions of river governance, with a focus on the Teesta, the Jinjiram and the Brahmaputra basins. With my gradual exploration of the river governance related issue, I got enlightened about the strength of community-led works in river management. One such community led initiative, I have started advocating for is Bandal, –  a traditional method for erosion management.

Continue reading “Bandal can transform the life of river and its people” »

Refugees on the Frontlines

On World Refugee Day Oxfam Celebrates Refugee Leadership

By Alexandra Kotowski 

Amina, a 21-year-old Rohingya woman living in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camps, was having problems with her husband when she learned about a refugee-led women’s group in her community. Amina’s husband had been a farmer in Myanmar, and they had lived happily together until violence forced them to flee across the border to Bangladesh. Unemployed and frustrated with life in the crowded refugee camps, Amina’s husband became abusive.

Continue reading “Refugees on the Frontlines” »

Coordination, Communication and Compassion: Leading COVID-19 Humanitarian Response by Oxfam in Bangladesh

Writer:  Dr. Dipankar Datta 

It’s been so many days, weeks, or months, our life has changed, depending where we live in this world. With COVID 19, we are experiencing something which is so global, and at the same time so personal! This unprecedented crisis is changing everything in our lives – we miss our friends and colleagues, our social and family affairs got dispersed, our meetings and conferences’ are being canceled, no jostles and bustles are seen in the multistoried shopping malls or in our joyful cricket stadiums, students are anxious – we are all scared of the uncertainty! The economic crisis caused by the pandemic has left hundreds of thousands of people out of work!

In this ever-changing scenario – a constant trade-off is made by global leaders for all the decisions that they take to save lives and livelihoods. It means, it is often hard to determine ‘what is right’ or ‘what is even the wrong’ – but global leaders are tasked with huge responsibilities to put the current unchartered flight on course and ensure safety and security of the people across the planet.

Continue reading “Coordination, Communication and Compassion: Leading COVID-19 Humanitarian Response by Oxfam in Bangladesh” »

Trust comes first: strengthening COVID-19 prevention mechanism in Rohingya camps

Author: Dipankar Datta, Country Director 

Since the inception of the humanitarian response in September 2017, Oxfam has placed dedicated efforts in building relationship with the Rohingya refugee community with a special focus on decision makers in the community such as traditional leaders, Majhi, Imam, etc. It is important as general population listen and respect their advice, and subsequently they play an important role in developing community action plan for proper hygiene management to overcome public health risks in the camps. Over a period of time, Community-based Volunteers (CBVs) have played an important role in strengthening Oxfam’s trusted relationship with refugees. As CBVs are part of the community and aware of their own cultural and religious norms and values, they can approach the refugees with comfort, trust and vice versa.

COVID-19 has now posed serious challenges for all actors to operate in the camps. Aid agencies are only allowed to run essential services; and as a part of the government’s directive, Oxfam is running WASH services in a number of Rohingya camps. It is a challenging task for Oxfam as only handful of team members can access to the camps because of strict regulatory framework that are in place to prevent the spread of the virus. Over the last three weeks, we are providing essential emergency services successfully, and it’s been possible because of Oxfam’s trusted relationship with the community.

Continue reading “Trust comes first: strengthening COVID-19 prevention mechanism in Rohingya camps” »

Discovering myself in work life

Methila Sarker – one of our volunteers happily shared her experience, with us. She spent time with the TROSA team, played a huge part in the project with the hope to add some happiness to the lives of others. These are her thoughts on volunteering with Oxfam in Bangladesh.

  Continue reading “Discovering myself in work life” »

Why local humanitarian response matters

MM Jakaria, a member of the Oxfam ELNHA team, and monitoring and evaluation expert, talks about why localisation of aid in Bangladesh matters and what the future might hold for local and international NGOs.

Firstly, what is the ELNHA project?

Continue reading “Why local humanitarian response matters” »