Summary: Celebrating Eight Years of Progress

Since 2000, our child sponsors have done so much to help Patenga’s people — most of whom live in a deeply impoverished, urban seaport area — make progress. Everyday life for many vulnerable children and their families has improved. People are aware that much still needs to be done in the Patenga project, but they are more hopeful about the future and are very proud of what they have accomplished. 

Children are healthier because:

• Parents have been trained in food preparation and proper hygiene practices, and they are more aware of the importance of immunization
• Immunization has increased from 54% to 91% — and with World Vision’s support and advocacy, the government of Bangladesh has now assumed responsibility for ongoing immunizations
• Half the community now has access to clean water.

Patenga has made some great progress since 2000 when more than half the community had no choice but to use unclean water for drinking, cooking and washing. Because of this, children were getting sick. A lack of immunization against common diseases made their health even worse. Fostering lasting change takes time but thanks to our sponsors, more families are able to make better health and nutrition choices.

Thanks also to our sponsors’ help, more children are getting a proper education:

• Enrolment has shot up from 35% to 92%
• More young people are in secondary school than ever before
• More girls are staying in school.

Families are better able to provide for their children because:

• There are 200 economic self-help groups with more than 3,500 members whose goal is to help each other boost family income
• Nearly 2,000 people have received loans and business training to start small businesses.

Patenga’s children are also safer thanks to:

• A training program for 6,000 people, including influential community leaders, that helps them be better prepared for natural disasters (a 1991 cyclone killed more than 1,100 people in the Patenga area alone)
• 200 volunteers who are ready to offer their services during a disaster and
• Two new cyclone shelters.

Much has been done to make life noticeably better for Patenga’s most vulnerable and impoverished families. Income-generating activities are gaining momentum. Children’s needs are being met. But perhaps the most noticeable change is the way in which women’s lives have changed. Where they were once unlikely to speak out or to challenge traditional authority, their voices are now being heard. They are running their own small businesses. Their achievements have given girls a stronger voice. More girls are going to school and fewer are marrying early — and these changes are critical to fostering greater strength in the next generation and giving them confidence that they can support themselves and the local economy.

All of these things demonstrate a commitment on the part of the people to continue with their own development. With our sponsors’ support, our work will continue in Patenga, helping build a better life and a more hopeful future for children. 

Accomplishment: Young Woman’s Success Inspires her Peers 

Ayesha Akter (Afsana) is an inspiration and a role model for others in the Patenga project. Women and girls, in particular, admire her for what she has been able to build: a thriving tailoring business that is providing jobs and transforming the lives of children.

In 2000, with support from World Vision sponsors, Ayesha began training in machine embroidery, hand embroidery and tie dye. She also received a sewing machine. With business training and start-up capital of about $1,650, Ayesha and more than 60 other women with similar interests and skills set up a tailoring business and a marketing centre to showcase their products.

Today, Ayesha is successful and so thankful for the support of World Vision sponsors. The lives of others like her are changing, too, as they enjoy the dignity and self-sufficiency that comes with being able to work and contribute to society — and children are enjoying a better quality of life now that their parents are working and earning a living. 

In 2008 in Patenga, our sponsors’ support helped us to:

• Train 552 economic self-help group members so they could start their own businesses and better provide for their children despite recent price hikes for food and other items in Patenga;
• Train 740 volunteers to manage and monitor income-generating activities;
• Provide 208 youth with vocational training in computers, embroidery, sewing, carpentry, driving, engine mechanics and refrigeration so they could avoid the risks that are so common in neglected urban areas;  and
• Help 50 self-help groups register as legal entities, giving them sustainability and a unified, stronger voice.

Ayesha is one of more than 2,000 people in Patenga who are succeeding because of loans and business training, and who are better able to provide for their children.

But it wasn’t always this way. Ayesha, her parents, and her six siblings were in a terrible predicament when her father lost his job at an oil company in 1999. Ayesha was determined to help her family out of this crisis, and when she learned of World Vision’s program, she embraced it wholeheartedly.

It was a difficult start. Ayesha’s income was very small. Many people were used to traditional ways of doing things, and it took time for them to accept the reality of women doing business in their community. Fortunately, Ayesha was able to overcome these barriers. Today, her business is thriving. She is able to care for her parents and has provided jobs for her sisters. She is the treasurer of her economic self-help group. “Thanks to World Vision Canada for giving me the opportunity to work [and for giving] us a new life for our family,” Ayesha says. “Without World Vision, I would not be able to provide income for my family's needs.”

Accomplishment: Tackling Severe Hunger

When Kumkum was born, she weighed 5.5 pounds. In the first nine months of her life, she gained only 500 grams.

Today, thanks to an intensive 12-day training program for mothers and their severely malnourished young children, Kumkum is doing so much better. Her mother, Halada, has learned to make balanced, nutritious meals — including a local dish known as khichuri that contains rice, lentils, vegetables, egg, oil and salt — and Kumkum has gained 300 grams.

“I did not know about nutrition and the nutritious food available at [an affordable] price,” Halada explains. “We thought that canned powder milk is the only good food for the child. Now I learned about the nutritious food and also noticed the significant growth of my child after feeding her balanced nutritious food for the last two weeks.”

Kumkum is well on her way to enjoying a healthier childhood. Others, too, are benefiting all over Patenga as more mothers learn to prepare nutritious meals. With our sponsors’ help in 2008, we were able to tackle malnutrition by:

• Monitoring 3,000 children under age 5 to determine their nutrition status;
• Referring 123 of those 3,000 children to the 12-day nutrition program; and
• Encouraging mothers to contribute what they can to the program — small amounts of cooking oil, for example — and then teaching them the fundamentals of good nutrition, proper hygiene practices, diarrhea prevention, vaccinations and breastfeeding.

Of the 123 children involved in the training sessions, all have progressed from the dangerous stage of severe malnutrition to nutrition levels that are considered normal for their age. This is proof that there is great value in helping mothers better understand nutritious foods and share that knowledge with others.

“Many children who could not even walk have recovered soon after they started receiving nutritious food,” program facilitator Purobi Singha explains. “Prevalence of diarrhea and pneumonia has receded in the community. The people are being more aware about food and nutrition."

Also in 2008, we were able to:

• Provide health check-ups for all sponsored children;
• Provide primary health care for more than 4,600 people;
• Install 87 tube wells to draw underground water, providing 2,100 more people with access to safe water;
• Build another 190 sanitary latrines;
• Distribute more than 37,000 polio vaccines and vitamin A supplements; and
• Train 12,000 people in HIV-prevention strategies.

Accomplishment: Education is the Key to the Future

Since 2000, school enrolment in Patenga has shot up from 35% to 92%, thanks to a combination of support for fees and supplies, better facilities and teacher training. Perhaps most important of all, parents have learned how critical it is to embrace education for all children, including girls, as a way to escape poverty.

In 2008, our sponsors helped us:

• Provide more than 4,000 students with school fees and supplies;
• Renovate and furnish seven schools;
• Facilitate 26 teacher-training sessions to improve teaching quality;
• Facilitate more than 400 parent meetings to encourage parents to get involved, help boost enrolment and lower dropout rates;
• Provide workshops to help 250 children understand their rights, and to discourage the practices of child labour and early marriage; and
• Continue to support “child corners” where children can play together and enjoy books, musical instruments, sports equipment and a variety of activities.

The presence of more girls in the classroom also indicates a significant shift in attitudes. Traditionally, few parents encouraged education for girls and most girls did not attend school at all or only until a certain age, which left them vulnerable to child labour and early marriage. Today, educated girls are exposed to opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have had and this makes their future more hopeful. The entire community benefits as a result.

Read Suraya’s story: A teenaged girl now in school thanks to the generosity of World Vision sponsors. 

Sponsors Birthday Gifts Help Children Learn and Play

Suraya, 15, is the eldest of four siblings. Her father, Mohammad Ali Akber, leases a small plot of land where he grows crops and vegetables. Daily life was once such a struggle. Feeding his family was Akber’s first priority, and paying for his daughters to attend school was a luxury he could not afford.

“Most of what I earn is spent for the labour cost and buying food for the family. I usually end up with a very insignificant amount of money at hand that I cannot make savings,” Akber says. “It would not be possible for me to afford my daughter’s schooling unless World Vision had sponsored her and took care of her education expenses.”

Today, however, Suraya is thriving at school and has progressed to Grade 10 — something that was once almost unheard of because of traditional attitudes toward education for girls and because of the practice of early marriage.

“I want to become an engineer, so that I can make a good living and take care of my parents,” Suraya says.

Child corners boost confidence

World Vision sponsors do so much to help children in Patenga. Their contributions help meet children’s basic needs in the long term, including health care, education, water, and food.

Sometimes, though, extra help is needed in a specific area — and because we are already established in Patenga, we can deliver that extra help quickly and efficiently through smaller, key projects with very specific goals. We call it “leveraging funds”.

Patenga’s birthday cards program is an example of how we do just that. In 2007, donations from Patenga’s sponsors to the program were used to set up three “child corners” — special places where children and youth like Suraya can meet, play, and take advantage of opportunities that did not exist before.

Because our generous donors helped make the child corners a reality, Patenga’s children have been able to learn new things and gain more confidence in their own abilities, which helps them become agents of change in their families and in the wider community. Children are making great use of these spaces, which are a vital service in this impoverished urban area where negative influences such as drugs, prostitution, child labour and alcohol abuse are sometimes undesirable realities.

Noman, 16, has been going to one of the child corners for three years. “There is not much scope for us children, especially girls, to play in the schools,” he explains. “At the child corner we have facilities to play. Many children couldn’t afford musical instruments. Here we get the opportunity to learn and practise art and culture, and expand our aptitude and talents. Children also learn to interact with others, coming out of themselves, they grow in confidence, develop personality, and socialize.”