Over 50 different indigenous societies live in Bangladesh, scattered around country. Among them, their female members are perhaps some of the people most excluded from the rest of society, in terms of education, health care and government resources. Mahmud, of MAP Photo Agency, has photographed these populations for the last decade. This exhibition of his work, co-hosted by ActionAid and the Bangladesh Indigenous People’s Forum brings their faces to the foreground. We encourage you to visit the exhibition and learn more about the true diversity Bangladesh holds.
RBBA, or “Responsible Business Bangladesh,” is a new initiative of Florence Calvet, a French national who has an excellent sense of duty to the people she employs and about the kind of business she wants to create.
In her own words:
What is behind the idea of RBBA and Chez Flo. It’s what I call Responsible Business or Ethic Business. It’s a way to help people from Bangladesh from inside meaning that I am helping them to develop business, generate incomes and then use this money to help more people.
Florence has started the business with a new guesthouse named Chez Flo, located in Uttara, a northern suburb of Bangladesh’s capital city Dhaka. Currently, there are two well-decorated rooms and a series of masterfully prepared deserts, cakes and drinks on offer, all created by Chez Flo’s staff under Florence’s guidance.
It’s an encouraging development to see new initiatives like Ms. Calvet’s—certainly we hope to visit the cafe the next time we’re in Uttara!
Award-winning Australian tour operator Intrepid Travel is coming to Bangladesh (click here to see the new itinerary).
This is big news, considering that Intrepid is one of the world’s leading Responsible Travel (RT) operators, having won the ‘Best Overall Tour Operator’ award from the UK’s Responsible Tourism awards in 2006.
For the past 18 years we’ve maintained a commitment to responsible and sustainable travel. We work with communities by establishing local businesses, we train and use local operators and we always ensure that our travellers really interact with the locals in their host communities.
By travelling responsibly we’re working to ensure that these incredible places, fascinating cultures and wonderful people are here to greet us in years to come. We’re empowering the local communities and creating richer, real life experiences for travellers.
The Dhaka Project is one of those special projects that inspires hope, creates real change and works with some of the most disadvantaged children Bangladesh has to offer.
When Emirates flight attendant Maria Conceicao visited a slum near Zia International Airport, she decided she would change the future of the children she found there. Three years after the founding of the project, there are now two schools, a preschool, a nursery, a clinic, dentist, computer lab, science lab, and over 700 disadvantaged children getting an English medium education and two square meals a day.
Of course, none of these initiatives is possible without money, awareness and the helpful hand of so many people. Maria has worked tirelessly to raise the funds necessary to support her initiatives, and has been joined by volunteers from around the world to help her raise the funds and profile of the organisation. The project’s baseline funding is currently supplied by the Emirates Airline Foundation, although there is currently a new appeal out there for more funds for anybody who cares to support such initiatives.
Work like this is inspiring—the faces of so many children for whom this school represents the only chance to change their lives leaves a mark on your soul that you cannot forget.
For more information, please browse The Dhaka Project’s website, or have a look at volunteer Richard Fleming’s introduction via Youtube:
There are some rare moments as a guidebook writer that I am given a chance to enjoy the peace and serenity offered to me by the natural beauty of Bangladesh, and I try to seek out these experiences whenever possible.
One of these rare moments came as I sat on the terrace outside my room at the Nazimgarh Resort. The highway traffic hummed from a distance, but my attention remain fixed on the sound of a dozen different birds chattering away in the trees, most of whom were winter migrants like my Canadian self. I had just taken a stroll around the well-tended grounds of the resort. The sun broke through the winter morning clouds, painting the nearby mango trees in a golden hue.
The issue mainly stems over whether the project is doing good by learning the habits of the majestic animal, or contributing to its demise. Its opponents argue that the drug used in the tranquilizing damages the tiger’s central nervous system. Hossain writes:
Sundarban is a unique place and also the only great ecosystem in the world where Bengal tigers live in saline water system. Life of a wild tiger is extremely challenging and very much depends on the physical and psychological integrity of the animal. For zoo or captive tigers physical wellbeing is enough for her survival. But for a wild animal her physical and psychological performance together only can ensure her survival. There has not been any pharmacological research to find how the above chemicals will affect specially the Sundarban tiger that drinks salt water and eat the intestine of the kill full of mangrove vegetation. Before this research is done and proven safe, there should be no other application of those drugs on healthy tigers in the wild.
However, researchers on the project argue that there is no evidence that the drug causes said damage, and that radio-collaring is an absolutely necessary tool in discovering the habits of the tiger, so that managers can make proper decisions as to its conservation. Adam Barlow writes:
The media has great potential to help in raising awareness about tiger conservation and to garner public support for this precious animal. Conversely, it also has the power to damage tiger conservation by negative and subjective reporting that confuses issues and seemingly deliberately tries to hamper people’s heartfelt and well-thought out efforts to protect the tiger. Surely the job of the newspaper is to provide objective reports on stories so that the Bangladeshi people can use the balanced information to make informed views on a subject.
It is our opinion that collaring is necessary and needed for the proper management of the Sundarbans and its wildlife, especially for the Royal Bengal Tiger, who is the chosen mascot of Bangladesh. Without solid research to back up forest management policies, the tigers stand at great risk to human interference. Given the lack of proper management that the forest department has had in episodes previous, we feel that appropriate, international standard scientific research will help conserve one of the last remaining wild places Bangladesh has.
Here’s a video showing the process of capturing the tiger:
While the beach at Cox’s Bazaar becomes more and more crowded with people this tourist season, very few know visitors know that there is a refugee camp not far from Bangladesh’s much-heralded beach paradise.
And the people at this camp need help. World Food Programme Volunteer Lindy Hogan writes:
As most of you know, I work with Burmese refugees who are living in
two camps near the Bangladesh-Burma border (approx 27,000 refugees). Recently a library has been established in each camp but the problem is that they hardly have any books in them!
So I’m writing to request for book donations. Any type of material would be useful - kids books, novels, educational materials, textbooks, magazines etc - so long as it is culturally appropriate.
English or Bengali, new or second hand is fine.
Thought I’d get this out as I know a few of you are coming down this way in the next couple of months - so you can leave books with me then.
Thanks for your help on this everyone.
Cheers,
Lindy
VIDA Volunteer
World Food Programme
Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh
To contact Lindy, please write to her by e-mail letting her know of your visit: lindymay [AT] gmail.com.
(Jan 20 - DHAKA) What do you do when a devastating cyclone strikes the area that you’re about to visit?
If your name is Michael Mangano, you raise funds from your friends and family and bring money for the relief goods with your own two hands. That’s exactly what the Boston graduate student did in early January.
Mangano used online merchant Paypal to successfully raise $1,005 USD (or approx 68,000 Bangladeshi Taka) for victims of Cyclone Sidr, especially in the hard hit Sundarbans region of Bangladesh.
Watch the video:
“It’s a kind of ‘do-it-yourself’ relief work,” says Mangano. “My whole trip feels much more worthwhile because of it.”
Joybangla.info is the website for Bangladesh: The Bradt Travel Guide. We welcome you to follow our research progress (or lack thereof) at this blog. More..
Click here for the full size flyer.
RBBA, or “
Some 
While the beach at Cox’s Bazaar becomes more and more crowded with people this tourist season, very few know visitors know that there is a refugee camp not far from Bangladesh’s much-heralded beach paradise. 
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