26th August 2014

New centres in the Sundarbans

The Sundarbans is a natural region of Bangladesh and the largest mangrove forest in the world. The forest covers three districts in Khulna division – Khulna, Satkhira and Bagerhat. Many people say that the saline water is a curse for the people of the Sundarbans area because they cannot grow crops on their land and as such people eek out a living by going into the forest to collect prawns, wood and honey. Hathay Bunano has started working in the Satkhir district from July 2014 in collaboration with CREL project which is funded by USAID. The objectives of this project are to create employment for women in this area to reduce the ongoing destruction of the natural balance of the environment.

We initially selected 50 women for 2 centres for training and just this week these women have completed their training and will be starting production work. Our Chairman, Golam Morshed, and Executive Director, Rayhan Kabir, visited the centres to welcome these artisans into the HBPS family and celebrate the start of production work.

The Royal Bengal Tiger is famous in the Sundarbans mangrove forest and is an endangered species. It would be nice to see these new recruits making crochet tigers in the Sundarbans and helping to preserve the natural beauty and important ecology of the area.