Sunamganj is a district within the wetland ecosystem in northeast Bangladesh, which is especially weak to local weather change. Floods arrive shortly and immediately and might final for weeks. They disrupt life, displace households and reduce off entry to providers.
For the over 670,000 ladies of reproductive age residing within the space, more and more excessive climate occasions are threatening their entry to reproductive healthcare.
Preparation and planning
To assist put together for these crises, UNFPA is coaching reproductive-aged ladies to guard themselves and their kids in the course of the subsequent flood.
Shakila Akhter, a 24-year-old mom of two, was eight months pregnant over the past flood.
“Due to the coaching I acquired, I knew what to hold, easy methods to put together and easy methods to defend my household,” she recalled. She now makes use of household planning instruments she didn’t find out about earlier than: “I need to select once I’m prepared for one more little one.”
She additionally underscored the hyperlink between local weather change and these extreme floods: “We perceive that the local weather has modified over the previous 20 years. In Bangladesh, the flood season has change into longer, sudden floods are extra frequent, heatwaves have intensified, and winters are actually shorter.
“So, all of us must be ready to handle it to outlive.”
Native volunteers
This coaching is made attainable by volunteers educated to assist others put together for local weather shocks.
Shakila Begum, 26, started volunteering with simply two days of coaching. She works with the Local weather Resilience Well being System and Group initiative – supported by the UNFPA and the Swedish Worldwide Improvement Cooperation Company – which educates ladies on matters from menstruation to childbirth throughout floods.
Ms. Begum is now the purpose of contact for 75 households, serving to them with points like household planning and maternal healthcare.
“One girl had dangerously hypertension simply earlier than giving beginning,” she recalled. “I suggested her household to go to the native hospital, the place she safely delivered – utterly freed from value.”
UNFPA Consultant Catherine Breen Kamkong (centre) meets Shakila Begum (proper, in inexperienced), a 26-year-old volunteer with the Local weather Resilience Well being System and Group Challenge in Sunamganj.
Empowerment by means of protected areas
The initiative additionally provides protected group areas the place ladies can study sexual and reproductive well being.
In Kurban Nagarn, an space in Sunamganj, volunteers have begun internet hosting “road dramas”. The volunteers act out scenes associated to points corresponding to maternal well being, catastrophe preparedness and little one marriage prevention, with over 500 folks attending every efficiency.
Taskira Hauque Tazin, an area pupil, is among the shifting theatre’s core members. She has attended many conferences in Bangladesh and overseas, the place she shares her experiences and is recognised for her work.
“I really feel proud to work for ladies’s empowerment and to assist underprivileged communities. By way of these performs, we increase consciousness so that girls don’t fall behind. We need to cease early marriage, promote women’ schooling, and make sure that ladies get entry to maternal well being care,” she mentioned. “Whether or not it’s within the solar, rain, or storm – we’ll hold doing this work for the folks.”
Villagers collect for a day road drama in Bodipur, Kurban Nagar Union, Sunamganj, as a part of the Local weather Resilience Well being System and Group Challenge.
Anima Akhter, a 24-year-old mom in Kurban Nagarn, defined that the road dramas present a protected area for tough conversations: “We need to share our issues, particularly about our our bodies – however we frequently can’t communicate.”
With the assist of native volunteers, Anima delivered her youngest little one safely on the hospital.
Amina’s husband, Nurul, now accompanies her to group classes and has change into a job mannequin locally, receiving coaching from volunteers to show his neighbours about ladies’s and women’ well being.
“Since my spouse underwent coaching, I took it very severely and felt impressed to assist our neighbours, particularly regarding ladies’s and women’ well being,” he mentioned. “I recurrently speak about these essential messages with different males on the tea stall, encouraging them to be ready for disasters and to take the identical precautions.
“I urge them to hunt assist from service suppliers in the event that they face any issues, particularly regarding pregnant ladies’s deliveries and household planning strategies.”
Anima Akhter, 24, together with her husband Ruhul Amin, 30, a steelworker, and their two kids outdoors their residence in Bodipur village in Kurban Nagar Union.
Ongoing challenges
However challenges stay regardless of the perfect efforts of the UNFPA and different UN companions.
In flood-prone villages in Sunamganj, over half of deliveries nonetheless happen at residence.
Many ladies and women additionally nonetheless really feel disgrace discussing matters like menstruation, and cultural norms typically limit ladies who try and generate their very own earnings.
These vulnerabilities confronted by ladies and women are exacerbated by climate-related disasters, which regularly hit them the toughest.
Continued commitments
From 28 to 31 July, world consultants convened on the World Symposium on Local weather Justice and Impacted Populations in Brasília, co-hosted by UNFPA and the Authorities of Brazil.
There, leaders labored to deal with the disproportionate impression of local weather change on ladies and women. The occasion referred to as for gender-inclusive local weather negotiations and a renewed dedication to understanding the impression local weather change has on sexual and reproductive well being and rights.
Diene Keita, Performing Government Director of UNFPA, highlighted the gendered impression of local weather change on the occasion: “The proof tells us that local weather change is growing the danger of maternal mortality, disrupting entry to contraceptives and growing the danger of gender-based violence.”
“Our collective efforts must strengthen the resilience of ladies, women and well being programs to resist and adapt to local weather shocks,” Ms. Keita confused. “Being ready, responding quickly, and constructing ahead higher have to be central pillars for our work.”
