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Climate change has
increased the flooding recent years – now Bangladesh has floods
two times a year. Ten million people have been made homeless by
recent flooding. Over the next 10-20 years, 20 per cent of the
land will be lost to the sea resulting 20 million climate
refugees because of climate change. Bangladesh will be pummeled
from the south by cyclones and sea level rise, and flooded from
the north by the major rivers swollen by warming glaciers in the
Himalayas. Now, in the dry season, it's easy to see the impact
in erosion. Like people, trees struggle to stay rooted in
north-western Bangladesh. If, as some scientists predict, sea
levels rise significantly by the end of this century, a lot of
Bangladesh will simply disappear.
Issues like this need
local solution by local people. Shidhulai as a local
organization is proving that it is possible to deal with this
climate change, to tackle pollution, and at the same time, to
lift people out of poverty. The boat project has proved its
usefulness in the continuation of education during the flooding.
Shidhulai believes that it is possible to run the complete
education system on water by replicating the boat project in the
submerged Bangladesh in future.
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In such context,
Shidhulai is developing floating villages, and also floating
gardens having an earth bed of roots and dirt on water - thus
farmers could enjoy constant irrigation and produce huge
harvests of vegetables in submerged Bangladesh.
During the seasonal
flooding, Shidhulai provides emergency relief to the affected
areas. |
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Public Broadcasting
Services (PBS):
‘Bangladesh Relief’
broadcasted in Religion & Ethics
Newsweekly of PBS, Episode no. 1124, February 15, 2008.
The Washington
Post:
‘In Flood-Prone Bangladesh, a Future That Floats’
by Emily Wax, September 27,
2007. |
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