Where: Bangladesh
Area of Solutions: Biodiversity and nature-based solutions; Sustainable cities and communities; Education and advocacy; Ocean and life below water; Climate adaptation and resilience; Capacity-building; Involvement of local communities and indigenous peoples; Women and gender-responsive actions; Youth; Feminist action for climate justice
Badabon Sangho is a grassroots women's rights organisation. This organisation uses a feminist approach by engaging women who face the worst forms of violence and discrimination regarding land ownership. They face these discriminations due to cultural stigmas over race and gender, making it increasingly hard for these women to recover from natural disasters. This often leads to these women being expelled from their own lands. These women are forced to remain silent instead of raising their voices or asking for their rights.
Badabon Sangho started its journey in 2016 in the southern region of Bangladesh, the Rampal and Mongla, next to the Bay of Bengal and Sundarban (the largest mangrove forest) in Bangladesh. Badabon Sangho is currently running two programmes with women groups. The first is a project to support women fisher-folk rights. These women are at extreme risk of losing their sources of income because of climate change. The second project is directed towards women-headed households and indigenous peoples living in urban slums. Badabon Sangho uses tools, methods, and activities to assist those groups to articulate these women’s demands, raise their voices, and organise local-level movements.
Which groups of people and how many people did you reach?
A total of 1,120 fisher-folk women and girls and a total of 774 women-headed households are the target beneficiaries of the programme.
What changes resulted? (Feel free to provide specific numbers whenever possible but otherwise, please share what changes resulted such as awareness-raising, policy change, actions inspired etc.)
Overall changes are seen in the leadership capacity of the women fisher-folk community. Women fisher-folk are not recognized by the police and laws, which deprives them of access to public safety. Badabon Sangho’s fisher-folk group members (Dalit and indigenous women) organized themselves and formed a fisher-folk association. The association is one of the keys to success – providing women fisher-folk a platform to act and demand their rights at the belt of Bay of Bengal adjacent to Sundarban. These associations are also holding movements to protect their waterbodies and livelihoods from the giant tourism companies that are trying to establish hotels and tourism at the belt of Sundarban.
What obstacles, if any, did you face and overcome while implementing the project? Please share any lessons learned and stories on how you overcame obstacles.
One of the largest challenges this organization has experienced is legitimacy of the fisher-folk associations. After the mobilization of the women fisher-folk at the belt of the bay of the Bengal, fisher-folk women groups attempted to register as formal associations. These women had all necessary documents. A few weeks later, authorities informed the women that the association would not be registered. Authorities did not have any specific reason other than expressed confusion about how women could be main income earners in the home, in charge of managing the family’s livelihoods. After a series of meetings and discussions, it was revealed that women-specific registration of the association is not prohibited. Rather, it depends on the attitude and biases of the officials.
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