I am a honours 3rd year student studying management in Mohsin Degree College.

We have an
organisation consisting of youths named ‘Shorup Youth Team’. I am the founder of this
organisation. This organisation works on climate adaptation, mitigation and human rights
engaging the grassroot people. I got acquainted with jhumu apu through my work.

What sort of activities do you conduct with your youth team?

We have started our activities back in 2021 specifically. You will get a clear idea if I narrate
the entire scenario from the beginning. We created a Facebook page named ‘shyamnogor er
Rup o Boichitro'.Shyamnogor is one of the largest upazilaas of Bangladesh which is adjacent
to Shundorban.Shyamnogor is filled with natural diversity. We used to capture the natural
beauty of shyamnogor and posted those on the group. At some point, the local government of
our upazila also got involved with us. The UNO got engaged with us which inspired us a
lot.Our group gained popularity gradually. Working in that group made me realise that the
natural diversity of our upazila is not so beautiful as it was 5 years earlier. I started thinking
about climate change since then. I was not well aware of climate change before. However
while being involved with that group, I got to understand that this area is enduring crisis.
Understanding the crisis made me think about how we can combat against climate change.
From this we founded an organisation named ‘Shorup Youth Team'. In the beginning we were
engaged in social work but I felt it wasn’t making an impact. To bring a positive change in
the society, I started thinking about working on climate change. I started finding out what’s
causing the climate change then I realised the outside world is responsible for that. But we
are enduring the negative effects because of them. We got some training on climate change
conducted by some NGOs, institutions and Upazila Porishod. Such trainings gave us a clear
understanding that we need to resist the impacts of climate change. Then ‘Action Aid' gave us
a hand. As you already know about ‘Fridays for Future’. They assist us in carrying our
programs. We organise a program every Friday where the youths collect all the plastic goods
that are thrown away by the people who come here for picnic as this place is adjacent to
Sundarban. The volunteers collect those plastics and sell those to the trash collectors and with
that money we plant trees. By doing so we try to engage in adaptation mitigation policy. We
have already planted a few plants. We have taken a initiative to plant trees in a road of 1 km.
The local forest department, policy makers have agreed to corporate with us. We are
conducting this project under adaptation mitigation policy. We are engaging in more
community strikes to make the youths understand about mobilisation. We are trying to find
out the challenges we need to face due to climate change. We already have a number of issues
such as sustainable embankments, crisis of safe drinking water etc. I have a personal
experience related to sustainable embankment. The embankment got damaged consecutively
2 times at a place back in 2022.That happened before cyclone ‘Sitrang.

Lack of sustainable embankment causes erosion of soil. It happened 2 years consecutively.

last time the embankment got damaged and 3-4 villages flooded away. Cultivating lands,
fishery farms faced a lot of damage due to this. People had to severely suffer for
unsustainable embankment system. At that time I made a placard. I wrote that I would rather
sell myself. In exchange of this I demand for a sustainable embankment. It caught the
attention of media and the media covered this news. I got a huge response. At some point the
government officials came in my home to justify their actions. After that I got acquainted
with quite a lot of people. The local youths also collaborated with me. We tried to convey our
demands to the people through these small campaigns. We held a mass signing campaign in
our area demanding sustainable embankment.15000 vulnerable people signed in that
campaign. This campaign worked as an evidence to show the local government that
sustainable embankment is a mass demand. Beside that we took some video clips of how
people are suffering. The children of coastal areas are unable to get proper education due to
lack of standard educational institutions. We tried to hold some sessions with them where we
discussed the importance of education. They were discouraged to drop out of the school. We
tried to make them understand that the future of this area lies in their hands. We tried to
spread awareness about education and climate change among the youths through these
campaigns. This is how we are currently operating. We got 312 volunteers who are engaged
with us now.

What’s the average age of the volunteers of your team?

If you come here, you’ll understand the entire scenario. People of our area can pass only
honours level, not further than this. They are few in number. Maximum students drop out
after passing SSC exam. As this is a poverty prone area, the youths need to take responsibility
of their families at young age. Most of the parents suffer from health issues. The children of
those families need to bear the household responsibilities. They can’t continue their education
due to family issues. Some even become addicted to drugs. The main reason is poverty. And
this poverty comes from climate change. ‘Kaaler Kontho' published a news on Shyamnogor.
It was mentioned in the news that many people are migrating from Shyamnogor to cities or
towns. There are several families that don’t live here for 6-7 years. They live as displaced
people in cities. The children of those families are not keen to get education due to the family
pressure even though government is providing them enough facilities. We are trying to make
them connected with education. They can be a means of raising voice among people.

What kind of work the people of Shyamnogor generally do?

Shyamnogor is having multifaceted crisis varying from region to region. People of certain
areas are dependent on Sundarban. Some are migrating to cities. Also some people are
engaged in fish farming. They are engaged in different types of economic activities. But they
are constantly suffering from financial crisis. If the daily wage of a woman is 150 taka then it
would be inadequate to meet her family's daily needs considering the price hike. Men can
earn up to 300 taka but they don’t get to work everyday which leads to financial crisis. Many
people move out from village because in cities they can earn more. So they are more likely to
migrate to city areas. In the absence of the male members of the family women go outside of
their houses in search of work which causes them serious physical problems. If you come to
our area, you’ll be able to identify the problems just by witnessing it. Our area is beset with a
lot of issues.

Does salinity problem still persist?

To be honest, in our area there is scarcity of safe drinking water. While organising some
campaigns in Upazilla Health Complex we have to know that almost 80% women come here
with health issues. According to their report, almost 30% adolescent girls are incapable of
reproducing. These are the difficulties our community is dealing with currently.

Do you discuss the health and education problems on your awareness campaigns?

We have held a few sessions with women of our community where we discussed the health
problems and tried to inject consciousness into them. Mainly we tried to aware the adolescent
girls to maintain hygiene and health guidelines. There are also numerous challenges the
women of our community face in regular basis. For example some of them have to walk 2-3
km in order to fetch drinking water. They often fall victim of sexual harassment by some
perpetrators. This particular trouble is increasing day by day after covid. Women are being
subjected to assaults day by day. We have held awareness campaigns with the adolescent girls
to help them fight against eve teasing. Also we asked them not to go far from their home to
bring water. We tried to solve their problem by arranging a van which will be used to bring
water from distant places by our volunteers on weekly basis. We have been able to bring a
change in our area as our girls don’t need to go to distant places in order to fetch water. We
are trying to set this system in other areas as well so that the adolescent girls remain safe.

Is their any other youth group that work on climate change?

There are a few youth organisations in Shyamnogor that work in other sectors such as blood
donation, voluntary works, disaster management etc. There are 2-3 organisations that work
with us on climate change.

Do these organisations collaborate with you when you organise the programs?

I made an alliance where I was able to connect 16 organisations together. We don’t organise
all programs together but we do collaborate arranging some big programs. We try to
collaborate in terms of global movements and campaigns .Other than that the organisations
arrange their programs independently.

How do the local people respond to your activities?

We had to face some challenges in the beginning of our activities. As you know the village
people are superstitious with many things. They were sceptical at first. They thought that we
are backed by the NGOs. They also thought that NGOs are trying to push us away from our
religious faith Islam. They didn’t want their children to be involved with us. But gradually
they came around. Now they are very much helpful. They express their solidarity whenever
we organise any program and also try to help us in our difficulties.

They are not sceptical to your activities anymore.

Yes mostly. I won’t say that everyone has come in terms with us. But in most areas situation
has improved and don’t face much difficulties now. Through advocacy, campaigns we have
been able to enlighten them.

Do the local people want to contribute in your activities as well or they are contented
with whatever you have managed to do?

They appreciate our work. Some of the UP members and Ngos arrange water tank so that
people can collect water. Some people get water pitchers from Government to preserve water.
We are trying to make things work together. In my locality government has set some water
plants. But there are some areas where this facility is not available. We are trying to provide
support to those areas where water scarcity is evident.

What’s plan for Future?

We want to create a green earth. The youths can contribute most in the development of our
community. We are advancing to reach the goal by setting some small targets. Primarily we
are trying to solve the existing crisis collaborating with the local government. At the same
time we are advancing with the idea of how the youths can play a pivotal role to bring
changes in the society.

It's saddening to see how things haven’t changed in last 10 years. I have been working
on climate change for last 10 years and Shyamnogor is still beset with the same
problems I saw 10 years earlier.

It’s definitely true. The local government and some dishonest people are gaining profit while
the conditions of mass people remain same.