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Water: Story of Voice, Agency, Harmony and Leadership among the Women in Itagacha, Satkhira in Bangladesh

Water: A story of voice, agency, harmony and leadership among women in Itagacha, Satkhira in Bangladesh

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By Adrita Rahman, Muhammad Riaz Hossain and Sohrab Hossain

“The men do not have much of a role when it comes to collecting water for the households,” said one of the older men from Purbopara, Itagacha, Satkhira, Bangladesh during our discussion with the community members on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) issues. Scarcity of safe drinking water and poor sanitation are two main problems, among many others, that the people living in the informal settlements in Purbopara, Itagacha face in their daily lives.

Interestingly, what the male community members said about not having an active role in collecting water is not unique to Itagacha; this resonates all across Bangladesh where women and girls are known to bear 90 percent of the responsibility of collecting and managing water. It is also known that women mostly suffer from various WASH issues on a daily basis. This, in turn, makes the women and girls more susceptible to water-borne diseases; their struggle with WASH-related issues leads to poor menstrual hygiene practices and the lack of accessible and reliable WASH facilities near their homes has implications on their safety. Despite all this, the vulnerable women of Itagacha have found their voice, agency and leadership skills amidst all odds stacked against them.

Where is Itagacha and who lives here? 

Itagacha is in Satkhira, one of the most climate vulnerable districts in southern Bangladesh. While people there have entrenched vulnerability, among them, the poor living in the informal settlements in Purbopara are climate migrants who are worse off. Purbopara, owned by the Water Development Board (a government agency which is responsible for surface water and ground water management and operates under the Ministry of Water Resources) and is and situated beside a canal called Praan Shayer er Khaal is an informal urban settlement housing 289 families and a population of 986 people. They have built their lives around the canal, by making homes with simple brick structures and relying on the almost non-existent WASH facilities that they get there. The men are mostly daily wage earners, drivers, and small business owners and the women either work as house helps, cleaners, tailors, entrepreneurs of small businesses or sometimes even beg for a living.

WASH-related challenges

There is only one deep tube well in the community that is called “Bayannoh Koll” which can be translated to ‘52 taps’, its name representing the number of pipes connected to the tube well. The people from Purbopara rely on this tube well along with hand pumps that are placed within the community. But this too comes with its own set of problems. There is salinity and excessive iron that accumulates in these hand pumps, restricting the water flow; often insects and worms come out of the outlets; the water storage tank is rarely cleaned due to its sheer volume; at times, the water smells, making it extremely difficult to drink or even work with. Problems like these only worsen during summer when the water supply is barely adequate to meet the needs of the community.

Thus, most of the time, the people of Purbopara, Itagacha borrow water from various sources like the nearby government offices or from their neighbours, relying on their social networks. Some families also purchase water from middlemen, (local small business owners who sell water to these families and use their own transport to deliver the water jars) incurring greater household expenditure, money that could have been spent on buying nutritious food or even medicine. Though water is used by all the family members, the burden of this added chore of borrowing water from nearby places lies on the shoulders of the women in the household, taking up more of their hours.

Flip side of the coin

Although it has been observed that there is little or no participation of women in the water governance and decision-making that revolve around WASH issues across the country, the same is not true for the women in Purbopara. The women in Purbopara are at the forefront of mitigating WASH problems in the informal settlements. Here, women actively seek the local government’s help to place a hand pump, lodge a complaint or write an application to the authorities when the water supply is disrupted and take similar measures to improve the WASH conditions of their community. For instance, Salma shared her experience of how she wrote a letter of complaint herself and mobilized other women near her house and convinced them to go to the local government office to voice their problems. She also mentioned how there was a time when she felt nervous to step outside of her house, let alone speak in front of officers or in a room full of people. Salma smiled as she told us how attending courtyard sessions and meetings arranged by different NGOs had given her the confidence and the leadership skills she lacked before.

Why are women at the forefront in Itagacha while men aren’t interested?

The men from these informal settlements often leave for work really early and view bringing money to the household as their sole responsibility. Women, thus, have to tackle all the other responsibilities while the men are at work. Women here capitalize on their social networks and find out ways to get water to drink for themselves and for the entire family. However, men do partake when it comes to installing toilets or setting up drainage mechanisms for the community. This gendered division of labour has a flip side; it has automatically given the women in Itagacha the opportunity to develop leadership skills and gain agency and voice.

Moreover, Satkhira being a climate-vulnerable area, has a large NGO presence that has come here over the years and worked closely with the women in Purbopara. This has built the women’s capacity and enabled them to voice their concerns and opinions better. An increase in the rate of girls seeking education also played a crucial role in empowering them. This gendered impact, though is a negative consequence, here, it does have some positive outcomes; the women being at the forefront of WASH issues which in turn has some spillover effects.

“You can go do your work, I will handle this situation,” one of our female participants said this during community-based participatory research sessions to explain how it is the women who take charge when it comes to seeking social services and or ensuring documents like birth certificates are in place. This shows that there is a positive spillover effect that has happened to other areas because women here are at the forefront of WASH-related challenges and have taken up the challenge of solving other issues in the area.

Additionally, the men in the informal settlements have an aversion to going to the local government office. When we asked our participants why the men take a back seat, they mentioned factors like unavailability due to work commitments, male ego, masculinity and gender roles, shyness and awkwardness to be standing among a large group of women, lack of patience to wait in a queue and giving less significance to household work when compared to their mode of earning a living – play a significant role in deterring men from helping out the women. Additionally, the women mentioned that they use their pending household chores as an excuse to get the work done faster and thus, prefer to go to the municipal office themselves. 

Even when the men do go to collect water, once in a blue moon, they are seen as outliers, outnumbered by the women; they are also given the chance to take water first as it is believed by the community members that the men are in a rush to go to work and that they cannot afford to be late. One of our female participants also added, “Men will only earn a living and feel that all their responsibilities are done. ”

Salma is not the only woman in the community who has found her voice and agency and has emerged as a leader. There are many like her. Young girls in the community, who have greater access to schools are exposed to various NGOs and have Salma and others as their role models. These girls will be the changemakers of tomorrow, where they will be making decisions that shape their own circumstances. Women, being at the forefront in Itagacha’s  water and toilet management ensures that the services are more accessible, safe, and culturally appropriate for adolescent girls and women.  Additionally, women’s groups have also been effective in advocating for better WASH services, mobilizing resources, and promoting behavior change. Thus, all these factors combined have empowered women in Itagacha, giving them greater decision-making abilities and we hope that this continues.

Facilitating Dialogue between Informal Settlement Residents and Governance Actors

Facilitating Dialogue between Informal Settlement Residents and Governance Actors

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By Sabrina Fatema Chowdhury, Research Associate, BRAC JPGSPH

“It is not possible for any one type of organisation to support us [residents of informal settlements]. The government and private organisations need to work together.”

Tanvir Islam, a community member and a co-researcher, shared his thoughts during the regional learning-sharing workshops under the ARISE Responsive Fund sub-project held in Dhaka in March 2022.

Three Regional Learning Sharing events were held in Khulna, Rajshahi and Dhaka in March 2022 to share the learnings from ARISE Responsive Fund project and the experience of informal urban settlements residents. The event aimed to create a platform for informal urban settlement dwellers to share their health and wellbeing challenges with the duty bearers and governance actors, like senior City Corporation officials (i.e., Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Health Officer (CHO)), elected local government representatives (Ward Councillors), and NGO representatives (key service providers).

Participants discussed possible solutions and called for support from all stakeholders to address the health and wellbeing needs of informal settlement dwellers. They also talked about improving accountability mechanisms for service providers, governance actors, and community members.

 Two key messages came out from the discussion:

  • Both community members and governance actors need support from the private sector (i.e., NGOs and research organisations) to reduce gaps in services.
  • NGOs and research organisations can create a bridge between the community and the duty bearers by facilitating dialogues to raise and amplify the voices of the marginalised.

Governance actors and the private sector need to work together

Residents living in informal urban settlements often have low access to even the most basic healthcare services. Following a drop in COVID cases in Bangladesh and many members of their communities falling into the ‘new poor’ category, workshop participants emphasised the need for collaborative interventions by City Corporations and NGOs to address their health needs and provide livelihood support. Specifically, community participants asked for the provision of maternity care for pregnant women and day-care centres for working mothers within or near their settlements. They also raised concerns regarding the increasing risk of adolescent boys and young men being involved in substance abuse due to school/college closure and job loss during COVID-19. They suggested that youth training programmes can assist in reducing this.

Community members sharing their thoughts and experience at the learning-sharing events (Left: Dhaka event, Right: Rajshahi event)
Community members sharing their thoughts and experience at the learning-sharing events (Left: Dhaka event, Right: Rajshahi event)

During COVID-19, the ARISE Responsive Fund supported residents of informal settlements in Dhaka, Khulna, and Rajshahi in meeting their urgent health and hygiene needs. Community members shared their positive experiences with the support provided by ARISE. However, they also raised concern about the negative effect on their communities when an intervention/project ends. To ensure that interventions are successful and to sustain the project’s positive impact over a longer period, participants stressed again the need for city corporations and NGOs to work collaboratively.

While governance actors acknowledged the positive impact of many interventions in informal urban settlements, including the support provided by the ARISE Responsive Fund, they stressed the importance of consulting with city corporation authorities during the planning phase, so that they can guide projects to areas where the extremely poor and the deprived live.

Left: The ward councillor, ward no. 24, Rajshahi City Corporation
Right: The Chief Health Officer (CHO) of Khulna City Corporation
Left: The ward councillor, ward no. 24, Rajshahi City Corporation
Right: The Chief Health Officer (CHO) of Khulna City Corporation

Some community participants complained of misconduct during the distribution of aid and relief materials, which excluded many marginalised people in need of assistance. According to them, the absence of accountability and lack of an updated list of marginalised populations contributed to this misconduct. Acknowledging the problem, Dr. A. B. M. Sharif Uddin (CEO, Rajshahi City Corporation) also emphasised the urgent need to develop a system to prepare a list of city residents, including their incomes, occupations, and the number of family members. He suggested that a census in the city corporation area could be a solution to make the list, ensure those who need help can get it, and to increase transparency. He requested logistical, technical and workforce support from the private sector and NGOs to help them in improving accountability mechanisms.  

Additionally, participants felt that both the government and private sector could benefit from the existing good working relationships between NGOs and city corporations in many regions. NGOs could reach out to communities where the presence of the city corporation is limited and inform the city corporation about their needs of necessary services. Additionally, a bottom-up approach could establish a sense of ownership and responsibility among all relevant stakeholders and ensure their participation, according to Md. Imamul Azam Shahi (Programme Head, BRAC Urban Development Programme (UDP)).

More dialogues to improve accountability and accelerate ensuring services

Residents of informal urban settlements rarely get the chance to directly discuss their challenges in accessing services. Although the learning-sharing events were a new experience for many of the community participants, they appreciated the opportunity to speak with senior officials from city corporations and elected government representatives in person about the challenges they face in getting services related to health and income and presenting their priorities.

Governance actors also appreciated the structure of the event as they got the chance to listen to community members and their needs. They acknowledged that there are many gaps from their side, and often, they cannot visit the settlements themselves. They were also able to share areas where they needed support from NGOs to increase accountability and build-up a partnership to make services available and more accessible.

The discussions in the learning-sharing events manifest that more NGOs and research organizations should come forward and act as the medium of communication between governance actors and marginalised people living in informal settlements. If all parties can have direct conversations at a forum, policymakers, policy implementers, and service providers can better understand the needs of community, which can lead to more quickly solving some of the issues faced by marginalised communities. 

The workshop titled ‘Regional learning sharing: Responding to COVID-19 in Urban Informal Settlements: Learning from the ARISE Project’ was held on 20th, 24th, and 31st March 2022 in three city corporations in Bangladesh; Khulna, Rajshahi, and Dhaka, respectively. The workshops were jointly organised by the ARISE Hub Bangladesh, BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health (JPGSPH), and BRAC Urban Development Programme (UDP) under the ARISE Responsive Fund.

The formality of informality

The formality of informality

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By Ivy Chumo, Abu Conteh, Smiriti Jukur, Lilian Otiso, Samuel Saidu and Linda Waldman

In recent years, the term ‘informality’ has become increasingly popular. Urban informality refers to that which is not formal and is closely linked to terms such as the informal economy, informal settlements, informal work, housing and governance. ‘Urban informality’, Roy argues, is “a state of exception from the formal order of urbanization”. Thus, urban informality is often confined to the urban poor – informal settlements are not formally acknowledged or regulated by local or city authorities, and residents often lack title deeds. Additionally, housing in informal settlements is not laid out along planned roads and residents usually do not have access to state-provided health, water, sanitation, electricity, or other city services.   

Economic informality refers to unregistered workers or companies operating outside of the formal economy, not paying taxes and/or avoiding formal employment regulations, such as street hawkers, waste recyclers, street cleaners, and meat/vegetable sellers.

Informality in relation to governance assumes “the state as the formal legitimate actor and other (non-state) actors as being at the origin of informality”. Examples include community committees, landlords, political parties, gang leadership, support groups, women’s organisations, collectives, and traditional or indigenous leadership. Informal governance actors are often not elected, instead they emerge to address specific service gaps such as water, road maintenance and the delivery of transitional justice.

Informality is usually seen as a problem, as undesirable, haphazard, dirty even and as a challenge to development. It does not align with modernization or with the imagery of modern cities. Informality is also believed to reduce government incomes, to encourage poor governance outcomes, to increase inequality and poverty, and to undermine productivity. In ARISE’s research in informal settlements, researchers encounter informality everywhere. In contrast to the above views, ARISE researchers see informality as a positive force in relation to urban development challenges such as unemployment, housing problem and access to services. This, coupled with inspiration from Ledeneva 2018, who challenges academics to question the assumptions associated with informality, has led us to think about our research findings and to ask, is informality always informal?

In this blog post, we share ARISE examples that show that the accommodation, governance, and economic processes that happen in these settlements are seldom haphazard, unregulated, and ungoverned.

Informal arrangements offer formal support in Bangladesh and Sierra Leone

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the informal settlements of Dholpur, Shyampur and Kollyanpur in Dhaka City, Bangladesh, were overlooked by formal government responses. ARISE research has documented examples of informal collaborations and arrangements between formal and informal actors in filling this gap. For example, Community Health Workers (CHWs) and frontline workers (FWs), recruited from the community, were trained by NGOs and assigned for official Covid-19 information dissemination and distribution of relief (food and cash) and hygiene materials (masks, soaps) to marginalised people in informal urban settlements. CHWs/FWs worked closely with informal actors, such as local community-based committee members, community leaders and youth and sought their support when needed. Local youth volunteers took local initiatives, supported by community leaders and, in some cases, assisted CHWs/FWs in information dissemination of official Covid-19 messages.

 In Sierra Leone, the ARISE Hub  works with the informal settlements of Moyiba, Dwarzark and Cockle Bay, in Freetown. These settlements are governed by a mix of formal governance actors (government institutions and elected members) and informal ones (tribal chiefs, area chiefs, and community chiefs).

Informal or traditional leaders inherit their positions according to strict rules of, and procedures for, progression, which are enshrined in law. Older informal settlement residents revere and respect their chiefs, seeing them as the highest political authority and at the centre of community development. Yet younger migrants, who have come to the city in search of better lives and who find themselves living in deplorable conditions, are less satisfied with these chiefs. Because of this informal leadership, there is no sense that elections shape conditions in Sierra Leone’s informal settlements.

At the same time, however, residents are encouraged to vote as members of larger urban constituencies. These votes offer no economic or governance advantages, no protection, nor the upgrading of informal settlements. Instead, residents are under constant threat of eviction, as their settlements are deemed illegal and informal.

Freetown’s City Council, formally responsible for primary healthcare and sanitation, overlooks these informal settlements. Indeed, during the covid pandemic, the Sierra Leone government relied on chiefs to disseminate information about the necessary health measures and to ensure compliance of these. Despite not having an official mandate, or government support, training and financial investments, chiefs worked to protect their communities during the covid pandemic and to project the government’s health messages.

These covid-19 responses in informal urban settlements demonstrate how formal-informal collaborations provided a very formal system of support and solidarity for informal communities in the absence of formal government support systems, thereby mitigating the devastating effects of the pandemic on urban informal settlements.

Informal governance arrangements support community development in Kenya and India

In Nairobi, Kenya, the informal settlements of Korogocho and Viwandani have complicated formal and informal arrangements. Korogocho was formerly a rural village that found itself next to the rapidly developing city. The resulting informal settlement now encompasses the formal rural home of the residents. In contrast, Viwandani has developed around pre-existing formal industrial areas, providing accommodation for industrial workers.

In Korogocho and Viwandani, informal leadership structures, such as women leaders, Community Advisory Committees, and social workers, were considered by residents to be more knowledgeable about local conditions, more resilient, dedicated, and efficient than those formally responsible for delivering services. These informal leaders’ activities were also community-focused, ensuring that children attended school, that resources were equally distributed within the informal settlement, and creating a safe environment. Even so, these relationships were couched in formality: young people could not simply approach more senior Community Advisory Committees; Women Leaders could not insist on being included among the village elders.

Under the auspices of ARISE, the informal settlement community members and community organisations partnered with formal research institutions to conduct research that influenced the creation of a Special Planning Area (SPA) and resulted in joint community and government investment to improve infrastructure, access, and health care in the Viwandani area.

In India, relocation colonies have been identified as being part of a continuum of informality. These housing colonies accommodate families displaced from informal settlements because of development projects (usually large-scale infrastructure projects designed to achieve a modern city). ARISE partners in India are examining the diverse aspects of formal-informal systems in Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

In Ahmedabad, which lacks any policy frameworks for overseeing relocation and sees informal settlements as illegal and informal, these communities remain disengaged, disenfranchised, and informal, even post-resettlement.

In contrast, in Mumbai, where informal settlements and their informal leaders are acknowledged, and formal governance procedures are in place for rehabilitation and resettlement, there are opportunities to enhance community participation and address development challenges. Having a formal approach to relocation colonies can also assist in the development of formal accountability structures in the new settlements and the formalisation of informal tenure.

Reconceptualising Informality

The very definition of informality is defined by negatives, by what is perceived to be lacking, rather than by what these activities do or have. Our ARISE research demonstrates that focusing on the negatives does an injustice to so much that is defined as informal. Continuing to define informality as a lack of formality and exclusion from mainstream obscures the very formal, and often systematic processes, procedures, and principles which underlie informal arrangements. It also obscures the value that informality provides to cities and to formal structures and arrangements. This includes the provision of low wage workers for factories and homes and the presence of informal leaders, who can be relied upon to assume responsibility in emergencies and for community development. By obscuring and not acknowledging the formality and value of the informal, decision-makers are able to avoid taking responsibility for particular categories of citizens.

There are a range of legal and bureaucratic structures dictating the roles that informal leaders such as chiefs, community advisors, and CHWs can take. There are also questions of protocol and behaviour, shaped by power and socio-cultural norms. To assume that the informal is indeed haphazard and unstructured is, quite simply, wrong. Rather, in a world that appears chaotic and outside of formal control, there are a myriad of ways in which urban informal settlement residents’ lives are structured. This too is a world in which social rules regulate behaviours and in which procedures structure people’s actions and experiences, often in ways knowledgeable about available resources and supportive of development initiatives in informal settlements. As our ARISE partners succinctly put it: “The notion that the informal is not rule-based, structured, and predictable and that it is beyond the reach of official governance processes is challenged by our research”.

Supporting communities in the COVID-19 pandemic: ARISE community researcher experiences

Supporting communities in the COVID-19 pandemic: ARISE community researcher experiences

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We have been conducting participatory action research in three informal urban settlements (commonly known as ‘slums’) of Dhaka city since 2019. These three areas are Kalyanpur Porabosti, Nama Shyampur and Dhalpur slums. Nishika Samaddar Tumpa, Jeevan Ahmed Jumman, Bilal Hossain Jewel – who are co-researchers in the project – reflect on their experiences during COVID-19. The original blog was co-written in Bangla and has been translated into English by Afsana Yeamin, ARISE Bangladesh researcher.

 

From March 2021, the number of active cases and deaths due to COVID-19 have  risen across Bangladesh. To prevent the spread of Covid, the government imposed restrictions on March 29, banning the movement of people and vehicles across the country . Despite the lockdown somewhat curbing the high rate of infection transmission, the country’s economy is severely affected. Most people living in slums in Dhaka city are poor and marginalized, and this second phase of lockdown, after the long-term lockdown of 2020, has hampered their earnings, throwing them into dire financial crisis.

 

ARISE Bangladesh continues its research work relentlessly even in the face of nationwide COVID-19 lockdown.  A total of six young people (two young men and women from each study site) have been involved in this research project as community researchers (co-researchers). During lockdown, community researchers not only confined themselves to research work, but each of them has also been actively involved in various COVID-19 awareness and response activities in their respective areas. Here, three co-researchers from three slums areas shared their experiences of involvement in COVID-19 response activities during the second wave of COVID-19 in Bangladesh.

 

Nama Shyampur

Tumpa, one of ARISE Bangladesh’s co-researchers, is also a Community Organizer (CO) of BRAC Urban Development Program (UDP) in Nama Shyampur slum under ARISE Responsive Fund. In Nama Shyampur slum, with support from the ARISE Responsive Fund, BRAC UDP set up three hand wash stations and distributed soaps and detergents to enhance hygiene practice among slum dwellers during the second phase of lockdown, and nearly 1,000 households received masks.  Additionally, 30 children were given school bags and stationery by BRAC UDP during lockdown.

 

I am currently playing a dual role as an ARISE co-researcher and CO of BRAC UDP. I have actively participated in the community-based COVID-19 preventive actions during the second phase of lockdown in Shyampur. My involvement ranged from planning to implementing those activities. During this lockdown, I organized multiple community meetings every month for raising awareness about COVID-19 among people residing in my areas. In those meetings, I discussed the necessity of wearing masks and the benefits of hygiene practice and demonstrated proper handwashing procedures. Yet, the irony is that I face various unprecedented situations during fieldwork as a woman and a frontline worker.

This year, during lockdown, while distributing masks among the people of our community, some people ranted at us. They said, “We are hungry; what is the point of wearing a mask?” During last year’s lockdown, some people who received financial or food assistance were expecting the same support this year. When they saw we merely distributed masks, they didn’t want to accept the free masks; instead, they started denying our advice and criticizing our activities. If we told them to wear masks, they replied, “Corona will not infect us.” When we advised them to maintain physical distance or avoid social gatherings, they said, “Who will do my work if I don’t go out? How will my family survive?” I handle such a situation based on the experiences of living and working in this slum. I first listened to their problems or complaints and then tried to explain the benefit of wearing masks or staying inside the home and how accepting free masks could save their money.

 

Dhalpur

Jumman is the male co-researcher in Dholpur slum and is also an active member of the local youth club of their slum – ‘Youth Associates’.

Although people have been made aware of using masks since the first wave of COVID-19 in Bangladesh last March, many people in our slum

are now reluctant to use masks as the number of COVID cases slowly declined at the end of 2020. In addition, awareness programs and relief distributions in Dhalpur slum were minimal during the second phase of the COVID-19 lockdown. So, our club members took the initiative to talk with local people and encouraged them to wear masks to keep them and their families safe during lockdown. As a co-researcher of ARISE, I, myself, bought bleaching powder and sprayed disinfectants in the alleys to clean our area during this second lockdown. Not only me, but the other members of Youth Associate also got involved in such cleaning activities.

 

While most of the people of my community encouraged us for our social work, people who fail to understand the motive of our activities often throw negative comments. For example, when I was spraying disinfectants, one said, “What they do is show-off”. Another person said, “They get money in return; therefore, they do such activities”. To mitigate this challenge, when they made such comments, I explained to them the benefit of spraying disinfectants. In addition, when doing awareness campaigns in our area, we tried to invite local leaders. These approaches helped us in gaining the community’s trust.

Kalyanpur Porabosti

Billal, a young social activist, is a co- researcher in Kollayanpur Porabosti. He and his local youth club, ‘Protimancha’, have been actively involved in COVID-19 awareness building in their slum from the beginning of the pandemic.

 

Though financial assistance or food support did not reach Dhalpur or Shyampur slums, the situation inside Kalyanpur Porabosti was somewhat exceptional. The World Food Program has been providing cash assistance of 3000 taka via Bkash (mobile banking) to about 1700 families with the help of BRAC UDP for the last ten months, and this support was continued during the second phase of lockdown. During lockdown, one of the political leaders of our area came at late night, at around 10 pm and distributed food (2.5 kg rice, 1 litre of oil, half a kg of onion, 1 kg of potato, 1 kg of sweet pumpkin and half a kilogram of lentils) to a few selected families. This assistance was negligible compared to the needs of the large number of people living in our slum, and the majority of the people receiving food assistance that day were known to that local leader and his acquaintances. A few days later, another organization came for relief distribution, but again, a handful of people in our area got it due to corruption and uneven distribution.

 

We, the two co-researchers and our club memebrs, have taken several initiatives to raise public awareness in our area during the second phase of lockdown, such as announcements via microphone, distributing posters or leaflets. The club members themselves raised funds for those activities. Apart from these, I took the initiative to organize a rally when IED (an NGO) approached us to create public awareness on Corona inside our slum. Moreover, during this lockdown, I visited various slum households and discussed the necessity of washing hands properly with soap to prevent COVID-19 infection, what to do when someone suffers from fever, cold and cough, and encouraged everyone to use masks going outside.

ARISE co-researchers, who belong to the marginalized groups living in the slums with financial and other constraints, are working as the change agents for their own communities. Linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky has a famous saying, “Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below”. ARISE community researchers are great examples of the ‘changes from below’.

'Normal' or 'New Normal': Life in urban slums amid the COVID-19 pandemic

‘Normal’ or ‘New Normal’: Life in urban slums amid the COVID-19 pandemic

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In this blog, three community researchers from three study sites Esha Akhtar Labanya, Sweety Akhtar and Md. Tanvir Islam explained how the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown affected their community. Md. Imran Hossain Mithu an ARISE researcher has translated this blog post from the original Bangla.

ARISE Bangladesh partner BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health (JPGSPH) at BRAC University has been conducting participatory action research in three urban slums (Kalyanpur porabasti, Dholpur, and Nama Shyampur) in Dhaka city since 2019. One of the features of this research is the active participation of community members in research activities. We have been working as community researchers in this study.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken different forms in Bangladesh over the past year. To deal with this situation, the government of Bangladesh has taken various preventive measures, including a nationwide shutdown/ lockdown at different phases. However, Bangladesh has been in the second wave of COVID-19 since mid-March 2021. Therefore, to address the second wave of COVID-19, the government again declared a nationwide lockdown from 7 April to 30 May 2021. As a result, poor and marginalized people residing in urban slums, especially in Dhaka city, again got stuck in the complex web of pandemic consequences.

COVID-19 prevention measures in urban informal settlements

Dhaka is the most densely populated city in Bangladesh, with thousands of poor and marginalized people living in informal settlements in different corners of the city. Most slum residents live in tiny, congested single-room houses. In addition, around 10 to 15 families, even sometimes 60 families, share one single toilet and use a communal bathing space and water collection point. Many families also use one single communal kitchen. All these factors serve as the main hindrance in following COVID-19 pandemic-related hygiene and preventive measures.

During the nationwide first lockdown in March – June 2020, many people tried to follow some preventive measures. Local community leaders, landlords, and other influential inhabitants took different community-level initiatives and containment measures to prevent infection transmission. The initiatives included a roster plan for using communal bathing spaces, water collection points and kitchen, etc. However, after announcing the second phase of lockdown in April 2021, no such initiatives have been observed across the slums. There are not even any initiatives from NGOs or the government to disseminate COVID-19 awareness information in the slums. Most people are unaware of the new COVID-19 variant and the importance of wearing masks, frequent handwashing, and maintaining physical distances.  As a result, they are reluctant to follow any preventive measures now. Like in pre-COVID times, people roam around the slums, gathering in tea stalls and local marketplaces without wearing masks. It is nearly impossible to maintain physical distancing in these overcrowded places.

Many people do not even believe in COVID-19’s existence or believe that poor people do not get infected as they do physical labour. A rickshaw puller from Shyampur said, “Corona is a disease for rich people; the disease does not infect the poor people who are working hard all day long.” These perceptions and attitudes are putting the slum dwellers at greater risk in the second wave of COVID-19 in Bangladesh.

Adhering to lockdown is a luxury

Long-term economic shocks as a result of COVID-19 have forced slum dwellers to go out searching for work. Most people living in slums are involved in poorly paid jobs such as ready-made garment (RMG) or factory workers and informal economic sectors (domestic workers, rickshaw pullers, van drivers, daily wage earners). The overall economy of Bangladesh was greatly affected by the first nationwide lockdown last March, and has not yet recovered, and the second lockdown has only intensified the adverse effects. Many slum dwellers lost their jobs, or their incomes have drastically decreased, and are battling to survive by spending their savings, selling their property, taking a loan, or borrowing money from relatives. The poor slum dwellers are immersed in the sea of starvation day by day. They are more afraid of their hungry stomach than they are of Corona. As their financial condition worsens, they ignore the lockdown, take risks of health, and look for a livelihood.

During the first lockdown in 2020, the government, different NGOs, and wealthy people provided various financial and food assistance to help poor slum dwellers. However, in the second phase of lockdown, neither the institutions nor individuals came forward to help. As a result, even though the poor may have somehow survived by getting help in the first phase of the lockdown, it has become difficult for them to survive without any help in the second lockdown. According to slum dwellers, where the poor slum population struggles to manage their daily foods, it is nothing but a luxury for them to follow lockdown. A resident of the Dholpur slum said, “We do not have rice in our house; what else can be happened by the corona!”

The ‘new normal’?

Now people are talking about the adaptation of ‘new normal’ of the pandemic. But what is ‘new normal’ or even ‘normal’? Is the ‘new normal’ the same for all? When we, people living in thousands of slums in Dhaka city, are struggling with daily survival with limited to no support from the government due to our unrecognized identity in the system, what is the ‘new normal’ for us? Is it staying at home during lockdown following government directives even if we starve to death? Or is it risking our lives by going out during lockdown for managing food and daily necessities?

 

 

households using a bamboo bridge to walk over waste in informal settlement

Reflections and dilemmas: My visit to an urban informal settlement

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In this blog post Farzana Manzoor takes us to Nama-shyampur, an informal settlement located at the edge of Kadamtali Thana, under Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC). This area is home to more than 5.5 thousand people.

It was my first ever visit to shyampur as part of ARISE. It was a very different experience for me, I have been to slums in Mirpur and Korail but this visit made me realize that not all slums are similar.

Every year there is an inflow of people from villages and towns coming in search of a better life and a roof over their heads, as many of their houses are flooded due to natural calamities. Many migrants come to earn a livelihood from industries like the steel, rods, cement and garments sectors or to be a domestic worker.

Heterogeneity

When I visualize a slum, I think of homogeneity in the physical layouts of housing. But Shyampur mixes high rise buildings with tin shaded houses and 12-20 feet wide roads. The more I walked through the roads, I had the feeling of a rustic kind of place. Passing through the pathways, there was a swamp followed by a garbage corner and at the side of which few vacant, drowned low-lying houses were found.

Heterogeneity can be vividly seen in this area. There are differences between the local community and migrants. Moreover, from the informal discussion with a Community Development Organization (CDO) it appeared there are disparities between the areas on the upper side of railway named “Ucha-shyampur” and underneath the railway, “Nama-shyampur”. Ucha means upper and Nama means lower, both the areas connote the types of lands and the people residing on them. People from Ucha-shyampur are mostly business people or landlords and are more solvent whereas people of Nama-shyampur earn less and are day laborers, factory workers etc. Ucha-shyampur has big buildings whereas Nama-shyampur has few newly constructed building structures.

“Ucha-shyampur sort of undermines the Nama-shyampur.”

Defining Marginalization

Nama-shyampurWhile walking towards the edge of the area, it seemed like the railway line had separated two distinctive contexts. One side consists of mills, factories or industries and the opposite houses in a precarious state. Actually, it can be viewed from varied perspectives. The industrial site is a source of livelihood for the people who are residing on the opposite side of the tracks.  Or one side produces hazardous chemicals and waste particles and the other is a dumping zone for this garbage. It is very difficult to measure whether the contribution or advantages of one side outweigh the hazards and disadvantages caused by them to the other side.

Marginalization can be defined in various ways. Few of the vulnerable sites that we visited had pipes and illegal lines, whereas six or seven minutes away you can find a high-tech water ATM booth with a filtered water pump where customers can buy water by using a prepaid card. To use the ATM card, you have to be a member of that community, must have a national ID card (citizen card) and apply for the card by submitting required papers including an application fee.

It is surprising how the differences are so clear within one community. When we asked one of the community people about the initiatives to address these issues, he indicated the avaricious nature of the ‘chair’ (‘chair’ represents the power and position of the local governance actors, for example local elected Ward Councillors, who are responsible for the development of a particular area). It seems people work for advantage or profit rather than serving vulnerable people and welfare of the society.

“The problem is with the chair not with people.”

Perilous roads

Walk way on stiltsWhen entering the slum, the roads are wide and well developed, though, with poor drainage systems and overloaded garbage corners. But the roads or narrow pathways that we had to take deeper in the slum, those were very fragile. Most of these roads were made up of bamboo stilts and some were thin wooden pieces balanced over the industrial wastewater. This made me wonder how the people living within that area walk around. Especially for the children living in this area. They grow up in stinky air and can easily come into contact with contaminated drainage water sources.

As we walked through the community, there were people staring at us from their doorways who have no option but to put up with such precarious houses, pathways and surroundings which they call home. I felt guilty of covering my nose with the scarf but it was difficult to breathe in the chemical mixed air. One of the women taunted me saying,

“We are poor so we can take it but you are solvent so you are unable to breath in dirty air.”

This was a reminder of the inequity that persists within the research process. It creates dilemmas related to keeping myself safe while simultaneously aiming to safeguard the co-researchers and community people to the same level. Being an early career researcher, such field visits, face to face interactions with community, attending community meetings all contribute to deeply understanding the reality and perceiving the experiences of community people living in informal settlements.

Streets of Korail

A letter to UKRI from Bangladesh

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We heard with dismay that the UKRI research budget is facing massive cuts. Our team in Bangladesh wanted to demonstrate some of the ways that UKRI financing has made a difference and what will be lost should it be taken away.

By colleagues at JPG School of Public Health at BRAC University

In Bangladesh working together with communities has given us a better understanding of the ground realities of people in informal urban settlements. We understand their problems better and we have been able to build a good working relationship and trust with the community. ARISE is a research program that touches many lives. We’ve highlighted a few areas of work that have really made us proud.

GIS mapping

Group mapping in Bangladesh

Urban slums in Dhaka are made up of many different sections. These sections are not unified and some are better served than others. Some of these sections are safe while others are not. Having a map allows the community to take initiatives and understand their slum and its entirety. We have supported the community to conduct GIS mapping.

These maps will be placed in the community clubs, where many residents can access them and they will be shared via mobile phone. They can use the maps to identify areas where services are not available, so when a new NGO comes in with an intervention such as building a school or health camp, they can look at these maps to identify these areas and thus reduce service duplication.

One of our co-researchers said that the map will help the firemen navigate through the community in the event of a fire incident helping other NGOs and community people find the exact location of different services.

“Fire incidents are common in our area. When a fire breaks out in our community, different people give different directions to the firemen because of which they often cannot reach the affected area in time. Now, with this map, we can easily direct the firemen to the exact location of fire and hope they are able to reach there sooner.”

Capacity development of co-researchers for better livelihood opportunities

Group work

ARISE approaches – such as co-producing GIS maps of our study sites – have been carried out with co-researchers from the community.  We had thought that this process would help build the capacity of youths and prepare them for better opportunities for their future. Our co-researchers consider being part of the team as a learning and capacity-building opportunity and that the knowledge and skills they gain through their involvement in this research will equip them to obtain better employment.

Within a month of working with ARISE, one of our co-researchers, Nishika Samaddar Tumpa  was offered a job at BRAC Urban Development Program as a community organizer for Shyampur. She is grateful to ARISE Bangladesh and said:

 

“Working in ARISE made me have more empathy and find ways to have more solidarity with marginalised groups. In addition, the training and reflexivity sessions made me more confident and all these ultimately helped me during the job interview process. It is because of the opportunity given to me as a co-researcher, I have this job today. My work is also being strengthened as I can now visit the marginalized households, feed in their needs and priorities to BRAC Urban Development Program and other NGOs in our area.”

Violence and facilitating referrals

We co-organize dialogues and meetings with community members and governance actors where community members are able to share their experiences and raise issues which need to be addressed. For example, in one of our community inception meetings, a mother helplessly wept for her child who was raped in their own community, and asked for help. The ARISE Bangladesh team linked the woman with BLAST (Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust) and she is now getting legal support free of charge. Moreover, we have also linked her up with a psychosocial support institute named Moner Bondhu who provide telephone counselling free of charge.

Community engagement to inform policy-makers

policy maker meeting

We link up the community with policy-makers such as chief health officers, councillors, slum development officers and ward members. These meetings serve as a platform for informal settlement residents to have their voices heard, it helps them realize their rights to their own health and wellbeing, and thus enable and encourage them to take action in their own interest.

In one of the meetings a community member said:

“Through your research, if we are able to present our needs and talk about our rights to the government, then the residents of our community would be benefited.”

Due to ARISE, we have begun working and building relationships with policy-makers who have emphasized that they are open to learning and are trying to address some of the community’s needs and priorities on the ground. Given the COVID-19 situation, it is important to continue this engagement because the government is willing to improve interventions and responsiveness in the informal settlements. We will continue to work with them to bring out community voices.

Uptake of COVID-19 vaccination in informal settlements

The evidence being generated by ARISE is key in informing policy decisions. For example, our observations, findings, reflections and feedback from data collection and community meetings are shared with the BRAC Urban Development Program. This helps them improve and modify their activities to better suit the needs of the community. Our findings also feed into the strategic planning and decision making of other organizations. We are currently undertaking qualitative research in different sites to understand the low uptake of vaccination in the country. The research is already gathering data on community’s understandings (including gender, stigma and other factors) as well as any misinformation that exists around the national COVID-19 vaccination roll-out program. These data will be shared with key stakeholders to help them design responsive communication on COVID-19 vaccination in urban informal settlements.

Urban digital platform: Inter-slum cross learning

ARISE team visiting and engaging with slum dwellers in Brac

An innovative strategy has been planned as a result of the ARISE Responsive Fund to provide an online learning platform provided for Community Development Organizations. As part of this project BRAC Urban Development Program will pilot a virtual cross-learning exchange where communities from three selected slums in three cities will meet and exchange learning and experiences. In meetings, community organizers of one slum will virtually connect with community organizers in the other two slums through tablet computers. This peer learning and sharing system will provide a sustainable system longer term to keep each other informed of innovative community-led initiatives and apply or adapt relevant initiatives in their own slum. This will lead to solidarity and unity across these slums when voicing their priorities and needs as a unified group when required to the councillors, ward members and NGOs.

contaminated water in bangladesh slum is health hazard

Join our Health Systems Global panel

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If you are a participant in the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research please do come along to our panel on the 10 March, 09.00-10.30 GMT.

Title

Digging into urban health: uncovering concepts and action for health and social justice in informal settlements

What’s it all about?

Rapid urbanization is re-shaping social and economic life and, with it, human health and health systems. Most of the world’s population is now urbanized, yet one-third of urban residents live in precarious ‘slums’ and ‘informal settlements’. These city-dwellers typically lack access to healthcare and vital health-supporting services. Slums are widespread in the Global South but often hidden in plain sight, reflecting residents’ lack of voice as well as sectoral and disciplinary silos. This session asks how health systems can better engage with the social, economic and environmental realities of informal settlements, in hopes of improving residents’ health and promoting social justice.

Urban areas often experience deeply entrenched health and social inequalities, but also concentrate knowledge, economic dynamism, and vibrant local organisations that can foster innovations in health-promoting practices. However, practical and conceptual approaches to deliver health systems for low-income urban residents often fail to address intersectoral challenges and the ubiquity of informality in the Global South. Vast amounts are spent on health services, while the social, economic and environmental determinants of health in informal settlements remain overwhelmingly neglected. Informal settlements are also poorly represented in official statistics, rendering them invisible to health officials and policymakers.

To reveal new insights into slums and urban health dynamics, the session will be organised like an archaeological dig: it will go beyond superficial observations to analyse the underlying structural determinants of health, and participating urban researchers, policymakers, and practitioners will foster interdisciplinary dialogue that can promote health equity and the broader 2030 Agenda.

Contributors

  1. Mr Robert Hakiza, a Congolese refugee in Uganda and director of Young African Refugees for Integral Development, will highlight urban displacement and associated risks to well-being. In particular, how urban refugees living alongside other low-income residents in Kampala struggle to access housing and healthcare, and face additional challenges of discrimination, lack of documentation, or language barriers.
  2. Mr Abu Conteh, an urban health researcher at the Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC), will highlight the complex, undercounted health burdens in Freetown’s informal settlements, drawing on research into residents’ life histories and the roles of formal and informal governance structures.
  3. Dr Alice Sverdlik, an urban researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED, UK) will highlight how health in informal settlements is influenced by multi-level factors including household poverty; inadequate shelter, services and infrastructure; unresponsive local governance and exclusionary planning.
  4. Dr Surekha Garimella is a researcher at the George Institute for Global Health (India) working on participatory approaches with waste-picking communities in Bangalore’s ‘informal spaces’. She will highlight collective community processes to improve health services entitlements for urban poor and marginalized residents.
  5. Professor Sabina Faiz Rashid is an anthropologist and the Dean of the BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health. She will highlight the social and structural inequalities which contribute to health vulnerability in informal settlements in Bangladesh

Photo credit: “Contaminated Waters in Bangladesh Slum” by United Nations Photo is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

International Development Committee on secondary impacts of COVID-19

ARISE inputs inform UK International Development Select Committee

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On the 26 January 2021 the UK Government International Development Select Committee published a report on the secondary impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Kate Hawkins explains what’s in the report and the evidence that ARISE submitted to the process.

The International Development Select Committee has a mandate within the UK government to track and assess international development spending and policy and make recommendations where change is deemed necessary. In April 2020 they opened an inquiry into COVID-19 in low- and middle-income countries and then moved into a second phase later in the year that looked at the secondary impacts and how aid from the UK might mitigate them. It focused on:

  • Non-coronavirus health care
  • Economy and food security
  • Treatment of women and children

Our evidence

We felt it important that we shared evidence from our work in India, Bangladesh, Kenya and Sierra Leone. You can find a shortened version of the points we made in our blog for World Cities Day. We highlighted the effects of violence and mental strain brought about by the pandemic and measures to tackle it. Our evidence explored how daily wage earners were particularly hard hit and that particularly marginalised people in urban informal settlements – such as waste-pickers – were feeling the brunt of the pain. It highlighted the gendered affects of COVID-19 and its impacts on the most vulnerable.

The International Development Select Committee report

The inquiry found that routine healthcare in some countries is grinding to a halt; vulnerable economies risked failure under rising levels of national debt; people across the Global South were more in fear of threats of job losses and starvation than the pandemic; and the virus, and its counter-measures, were increasing levels of gender-based violence, child marriages and other challenges to girls access to education.

The findings of the inquiry echo many of the challenges that we have seen in the course of our work. They cite our work several times and highlight the importance of capturing data on COVID-19 in a manner that adequately reflects the real-world situation for marginalised groups which is disaggregated  according to sex, ability, age, status etc. Throughout, they acknowledge that communities that were previously poor are being plunged into further crisis by the pandemic.

The report offers many recommendations for how aid from the UK can better organised. You can find the UK Government’s response to the report here.

We welcome the report and are grateful for the opportunity to provide evidence. Moving forward, we will be following future Select Committee inquiries and supplying data from our work where useful.

 

 

 

International Development Committee on secondary impacts of COVID-19

ARISE inputs inform UK International Development Select Committee

0

On the 26 January 2021 the UK Government International Development Select Committee published a report on the secondary impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Kate Hawkins explains what’s in the report and the evidence that ARISE submitted to the process.

The International Development Select Committee has a mandate within the UK government to track and assess international development spending and policy and make recommendations where change is deemed necessary. In April 2020 they opened an inquiry into COVID-19 in low- and middle-income countries and then moved into a second phase later in the year that looked at the secondary impacts and how aid from the UK might mitigate them. It focused on:

  • Non-coronavirus health care
  • Economy and food security
  • Treatment of women and children

Our evidence

We felt it important that we shared evidence from our work in India, Bangladesh, Kenya and Sierra Leone. You can find a shortened version of the points we made in our blog for World Cities Day. We highlighted the effects of violence and mental strain brought about by the pandemic and measures to tackle it. Our evidence explored how daily wage earners were particularly hard hit and that particularly marginalised people in urban informal settlements – such as waste-pickers – were feeling the brunt of the pain. It highlighted the gendered affects of COVID-19 and its impacts on the most vulnerable.

The International Development Select Committee report

The inquiry found that routine healthcare in some countries is grinding to a halt; vulnerable economies risked failure under rising levels of national debt; people across the Global South were more in fear of threats of job losses and starvation than the pandemic; and the virus, and its counter-measures, were increasing levels of gender-based violence, child marriages and other challenges to girls access to education.

The findings of the inquiry echo many of the challenges that we have seen in the course of our work. They cite our work several times and highlight the importance of capturing data on COVID-19 in a manner that adequately reflects the real-world situation for marginalised groups which is disaggregated  according to sex, ability, age, status etc. Throughout, they acknowledge that communities that were previously poor are being plunged into further crisis by the pandemic.

The report offers many recommendations for how aid from the UK can better organised. You can find the UK Government’s response to the report here.

We welcome the report and are grateful for the opportunity to provide evidence. Moving forward, we will be following future Select Committee inquiries and supplying data from our work where useful.

 

 

 

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