Professor Nick Mascie-Taylor (Professor of Human Population Biology and Health at the University of Cambridge) explains the importance of nutrition-related factors in combating poverty and suffering in the developing world. This detailed, but enjoyable and very easy to follow lecture is divided into 5 separate videos of approximately 10 minutes each.
Professor Mascie-Taylor works closely with DFID Livelihoods on several of its projects, and is acknowledged to be one of the world experts in his subject area.
Duration : 0:9:38
Read the rest of this entry »
This Practical Action project aims to address the development needs of the communities, who have been displaced by river erosion and those who are living under the threat of being eroded in the near future.
Gaibandha is located in northern Bangladesh at the confluence of the two major rivers, which makes the area vulnerable to floods and river erosion. Frequent disasters make life here much more difficult than the rest of country, by depriving people of land, employment opportunities and basic service facilities.
Duration : 0:5:27
Read the rest of this entry »
Indigenous (or adivashi) communities were among people from Bangladeshs isolated south-eastern Chittagong Hill Tract Area taking part in a mass meeting to voice their concerns about climate change and the impact its having on their native forest lands.
Nearly 1,000 people, mainly indigenous groups, took part in the activity, which included local cultural performances.
Some carried banners calling for indusrialised nations to open their borders so that poor and vulnerable communities adversely affected by climatic changes and forced to move from their lands or climate refugees could find alternative and safer locations for their families.
Others held banners calling on the worlds richest countries to drastically cut their greenhouse gas emissions and compensate poor nations like Bangladesh. They urged financial help to allow communities to protect themselves from the negative impacts caused by rising sea levels, including unpredictable weather patterns and flash flooding.
Marginalised indigenous villagers in the Chittagong Hill Tract areas say weather patterns have become unpredictable and flash flooding has increased in recent years, causing land erosion and damaging their crops livelihoods.
People are already worried about climate change. It affects their livelihoods, said Arun Kanti Chakma, executive director of the istance for the Livelihood of the Origins (ALO), one of the event organizers.
Already cultivation is being affected, people are not getting good crop production because of irregular rainfall and sometimes very heavy rainfall, or no rain at all. Its become a big problem for us and people here are already among the most marginalized.
The climate change protest was organized by Oxfam and the Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods (CSRL), an alliance of more than 150 civic groups, in the run up to the United Nations conference on climate change in Poznan, Poland.
In the last few years Bangladesh, already prone to cyclones and other weather-disasters, has seen an increase in the intensity and frequency of climate related problems. Changing conditions have meant weather-related disasters have become less predictable and more difficult to manage. A lack of information and resources makes it harder for the poorest communities to prepare or respond to increased hazards.
Duration : 0:1:34
Read the rest of this entry »
http://www.ashdenawards.org/winners/shidhulai Shidhulai won an Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy in 2007. To find out more visit the link above and check out the Ashden Awards Blog http://ashdenawards.blogspot.com
Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha was founded in 1998 to help poor, marginalised communities living in the remote Chalanbeel region of Bangladesh to develop sustainable livelihoods. Shidhulai has achieved this by building up a fleet of flat-bottomed boats, all made with locally available materials, that make their way through the shallow rivers and canals of the Chalanbeel to bring a range of educational services and renewable energy supplies to water-side families. The boats use solar PV modules to generate all the electricity they need to provide daily classes in primary education for children, libraries, training in sustainable agriculture, health advice, mobile phone and internet access and battery-charging facilities. Shidhulai has also provided villagers with 13,500 solar-home-systems, 2,500 lanterns and 15,000 bicycle pumps that deliver between 60 and 100 litres of water per minute - enough to irrigate half a hectare of land during the dry season. By putting into practice the agricultural techniques they have learnt on the boats and using the renewable energy devices, farmers have been able to significantly increase their income and reduce the use of synthetic pesticides, with about one third of farmers eliminating their use altogether.
Duration : 0:5:8
Read the rest of this entry »
A documentary film on Japanese aid effectiveness in Bangladesh. The films show how Jamuna Bridge has created obstruction to development in the Shirajgonj area, who is getting the profit and who is losing their livelihood. It visualizes the development disaster in the area where it was suppose to bring prosper. The film was directed by Shakil Ahmed and produce by New Vista Ltd for Unnayan Onneshan.
Duration : 0:9:45
Read the rest of this entry »
The FoSHoL (Food Security for Sustainable Households Livelihoods) project contributes to improvements in livelihoods and especially food security of rural farm households in Bangladesh by increasing availability, improving access, and improving utilisation of food by targeted households.
Duration : 0:3:16
Read the rest of this entry »
Kate Conroy, one of the facilitators at the May 2009 sustainable livelihoods workshop ‘Making it Happen in Asia’, explains what she feels the workshop achieved and just why it was so successful.
Duration : 0:2:5
Read the rest of this entry »
Gandhi’s major statement on the Palestine and the Jewish question came forth in his widely circulated editorial in the Harijan of 11 November 1938, a time when intense struggle between the Palestinian Arabs and the immigrant Jews had been on the anvil in Palestine. His views came in the context of severe pressure on him, especially from the Zionist quarters, to issue a statement on the problem. Therefore, he started his piece by saying that his sympathies are all with the Jews, who as a people were subjected to inhuman treatment and persecution for a long time.
“But”, Gandhi erted, “My sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and in the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after their return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?”
He thus questioned the very foundational logic of political Zionism. Gandhi rejected the idea of a Jewish State in the Promised Land by pointing out that the “Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract.” The Zionists, after embarking upon a policy of colonization of Palestine and after getting British recognition through the Balfour Declaration of 1917 for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jews,” tried to elicit maximum international support. The Jewish leaders were keen to get an approval for Zionism from Gandhi as his international fame as the leader of a non-violent national struggle against imperialism would provide great impetus for the Jewish cause. But his position was one of total disapproval of the Zionist project both for political and religious reasons. He was against the attempts of the British mandatory Government in Palestine toeing the Zionist line of imposing itself on the Palestinians in the name of establishing a Jewish national home. Gandhi’s Harijan editorial is an emphatic ertion of the rights of the Arabs in Palestine. The following oft-quoted lines exemplify his position: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs… Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.”
Gandhi’s response to Zionism and the Palestine question contains different layers of meaning, ranging from an ethical position to political realism. What is interesting is that Gandhi, who firmly believed in the inseparability of religion and politics, had been consistently and vehemently rejecting the cultural and religious nationalism of the Zionists.
Duration : 0:4:58
Read the rest of this entry »
http://www.schwabfound.org 23.01.2007
Fazle H. Abed, Founder and Chairperson, BRAC, Bangladesh, interviewed by Global X at the 7th Summit of the Schwab Social Entrepreneurs in Zürich, Switzerland. Fazle H. Abed speaks about how his life changed when a cylcone hit Bangladesh in 1970.
Duration : 0:4:17
Read the rest of this entry »
