Promoting Natural Farming Practices in Bangladesh

The Sundarbans is the single largest mangrove forest in the world. Almost 3.5 million of Sundarbans costal people depend on the Sundarbans natural resource. Most of the Sundarbans costal people’s life and livelihood depend on the mangrove resources. The natural resources of the Sundarbans are limited; but day by day ‍increasing number of people is egging with Sundarbans resources. So pressure on the natural resources is increasing at an alarming rate.

Fishing is the major profession among different professions in the Sundarbans. Fishermen of the Sundarbans region live from hand to mouth which means they lead their life by catching and selling fish every day. Their lives have become more difficult by the ever growing price hike of the daily necessary commodities and that’s why they are involving their child to work with them. So, generally the fishermen children don’t get the opportunity of higher education. Many students get dropped out due to financial crisis and they get involved in catching fish in childhood to support their family.

Bangladesh Environment and Development Society (BEDS) is a non-governmental development organization focuses on nature conservation through livelihood improvement of the poor communities. Mathurapur (Jelley Polly) fishermen village is adjacent of the Sundarbans in the south west part of Bangladesh. There are 75 families live in this village with ultra poverty. The education rate of this village is very low. Due to unconsciousness, parents are not interested in their children’s education. In this village, there are many dropout children working with the parents to harvest Sundarbans natural resources. BEDS has been working with these marginal people to improve their livelihood since 2013 by the supporting them fish farming, crab fattening, vegetable gardening, duck rearing etc.

Currently, BEDS is trying to raise fund from GlobalGiving platform to improve livelihood of 50 drop out children. Target grant of the proposed project is 35,660 $ and so far, 830 $ is raised.

We have been conducting with our target community regularly and discussing with them about what and how we can do better for their life and livelihood.

We want to thank all our donors for being with us. We hope that you will continuously consider the problems of our target community and assist them to lead a sound life.