Overview
2007 will be remembered for emergencies in Bangladesh: a cold wave in January and mudslides in June killed 246 people; devastating floods throughout the summer destroyed crops and killed 916; then Cyclone Sidr hit in November, leaving almost 3,500 dead.
Emergencies and education
In the wake of widespread devastation, Concern led intensive relief operations, distributing food and other essential items to thousands of families. Work also continued on education, health, livelihoods and HIV and AIDS throughout the year.
One of Concern’s highlights was successfully drawing the attention of the national education forum to the need for a flexible school calendar in areas prone to recurrent flooding.
We are people too
Another focus for Concern is the Amrao Munush project. It works with 10,000 of the poorest people in Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital city. The goal is to give a voice to the people who live their lives on the streets.
The name of the project was chosen by pavement dwellers themselves. In Bangla, Amrao Manush means, roughly: "We are people too."
The video below explains more about the project.
Some key achievements in Bangladesh:
- 24,620 children in 75 schools benefited from a new project to improve the quality of and access to education
- Concern trained more than 3,700 teachers and school management committee members.
- 1.35 million people were reached through primary healthcare and community-based nutrition projects
- The average prevalence of severe underweight decreased in all project areas from 26.2% in 2002 to 11.7% in 2007
- More than 36,200 people (almost half of them women and adolescent girls) developed new vocational skills and entrepreneurial traini
- Concern raised awareness of HIV and AIDS transmission and prevention among local organisations and communities
- HIV and AIDS awareness is a part of all new projects.
