South Asian Social Forum

I learnt about the World Social Forum years ago, an open meeting place where social movements, networks, individuals, NGOs and other civil society organisations come together to oppose war, commercial globalisation, militarisation, capitalism and neo-liberal imperialism, and to pursue their thinking about 'another world' of equality, social justice, and sustainability.  Its formation was inspired by the mass upsurge across Latin America, in particular the struggle of the Zapitistas in southern Mexico and the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organisation.

I had been to the Melbourne Social Forum, the micro-scale version of the above, a little collection of friendly stalls at CERES Environment Park in Brunswick.  All very interesting, but unfortunately it seemed to only attract people already quite involved in the usual campaigns... 

So when I heard that the  South Asian Social Forum would be coming to Dhaka, I was very curious.  Scheduled for November 18-22th, it took place at Dhaka University, which has a long history as a platform for nurturing democratic and progressive movements.  The university was the centre of Bangladesh’s historic language movement in 1952, which demanded recognition of Bangla as a national language. Its students and teachers played a key role in the national upsurge in 1969, and the liberation war in 1971.

The main theme for the South Asia Social Forum Bangladesh was  "Democracy for Social Transformation in South Asia: Participation, Equity, Justice and Peace", with various subthemes clustered as following:

Democracy and People’s Participation: Democracy, decentralization, corruption, demilitarization.

Human Rights and Dignity : Fundamental rights, child rights, women rights, labor rights, rights of indigenous people.

Privatization vs Public Services : Education, people’s health (Public Heath Care, HIV/AIDS.), water rights, knowledge technology and people’s entitlement.

Food Sovereignty & Livelihood Security : Farmers’ rights, corporate agriculture, food rights, hunger. land rights, natural resource: (forest, water & mineral resources).

Development Finance : People’s globalization vs IFIs, aid accountability, corporate accountability, trade justice.

Regional and Trans-boundary Concerns : Climate justice, regional cooperation,  peace and security (religious fundamentalism, cast, class and ethnicity), migration and trafficking, water sharing.


The basic goal of SASF was to contribute towards creating a new South Asia, free from poverty and hunger caused by deprivation, exploitation, discrimination, and establish a common humanity based on equality, freedom and justice.

So it was with high hopes that I arrived at Dhaka University right on time at 10am on Sat 19th for the morning session on 'Green Governance in coastal communities'.  It was then that I realised that - like in Australia - passionate people don't necessarily make for organised people.  There were volunteer guides in immaculate uniforms but no one had a map or a program or seemed to know what was going on.  Eventually I found the room, rushing in 40 min late to find... no one there.  Luckily one of the guides was able to take me to an auditorium where one of the main plenaries was being held, with the title 'Another South Asia is Possible'.  Unfortunately the speaker's microphone seemed to be set on the 'muffle' setting and he sounded like he was speaking from underwater.  Fortunately this was corrected for the next few speakers, who were interesting and inspiring.  The last was a passionate woman in her 60s who spoke about many things, one of which was how she viewed herself as a South Asian citizen before she saw herself as Bangladeshi, a shift which invites a broader view outside of nationalistic agendas.  It made me think about how I saw/should see myself - as an Australian, an Asia-Pacifican (!), or simply as a world-citizen.

After this I joined the market place of stalls - hundreds ranging from international NGOs to grassroots groups to movement organisations.  An NGO called the Bangladesh Resource Center for Indigenous Knowledge (BARCIK) displayed over a hundred different indigenous rice varieties, many of which are rare after the Green Revolution in the 1960s and 70s promoted high yielding varieties (HYV) with chemical inputs (pesticides, fertilisers).  A growing number of farmers are now seeking alternatives to HYV because of their cost and negative impacts to the soil. There were talks going on and hundreds of people wandered about in carnival like atmosphere.  At another seminar, 'Climate Change and Urbanisation, Perspective Bangladesh', when myself and my colleague Kanika wandered in late, we were promptly asked to introduce ourselves up front with the microphone, which we did.  Often 'bideshis' (foreigners) are thought of as instant experts - luckily I did not speak long enough for them to realise that this was not the case.

In the evening there were some films screening via projector.  One was an arty doco on consumerism. It was an odd feeling to be watching the perils of the consumerist lifestyle in rich countries whilst standing in one of the poorest countries on earth, with the deja vu feeling of recognising your own country in the images, yet being apart from it for so long (well seven months anyway).  I had this feeling at various times during the forum, when people spoke against the developed world and their strings-attached, NGO interventions into the developing countries.  Still, it didn't end up detracting from the feeling of solidarity and hope that was around the forum, and if anything invites the question of your own subject position and role in the ongoing re-creation that is Bangladesh...



Thanks to GLW for some of the background information to this post.

Cox's Bazaar Training

About a week after Dad left, my project team at Concern Universal Bangladesh organised 5 days of training for partner organisations.  The training was part of the climate change and disaster risk reduction capacity building project, and comprised a few different sessions, one on proposal writing, one on learning and evaluation, and other on principles and philosophy of Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction (some info here).Myself and my colleague Kanika developed the proposal writing module, but this largely got delivered by our unit head Hamid.  Most of the participants were founders/executive directors of their organisations, which ranged from tiny to medium/large size, similarly there was a vast difference of experience in the room which was challenging from the trainer's perspective. 

Everyday after the session would end the participants would generally change into board shorts (for the males, the females didnt have this option and remained in sari's generally) and hit the beach, seemingly becoming teenagers again and running up and down taking hundreds of photographs.  After all, we were in Cox' Bazaar, THE premiere tourist destination in Bangladesh, which seemed to mean vast amounts of fairly dubious looking hotels, billboards and stalls selling shells and other nick-nacks, not to mention the highest concentration of hawaiian shirts in the country.  But it quickly became apparent the real reason that people flocked here - the stunning beach, 125 km continuous kilometres of gently sloping sand.  Around twilight the golden light spilled over the water, which through reflections covered the whole place with luminous honey.  Being from Australia I am fairly spoilt with easy beach access, but for most of the Bangladeshis it was their only access to the dreamy space where ocean meets sky.  Interestingly enough I didn't see a single western foreigner during the week I was here, which seemed to indicate the efforts the government was putting into tourism marketing. 

I did get sick with some sort of virus bacteria, alongside a few others... there was a fairly uninspiring day when everyone else went off gallivanting to another more isolated beach and the infirm held close to their hotel rooms and even closer to their toilets and/or handkerchiefs.  Another incident occurred when three of the participants got stuck in a lift... an hour later they were freed, but a brawl almost ensured when angry participants clashed with hotel staff who had seemingly done little to free their friends. 

The trip ended with a looong overnight bus trip back to Dhaka (complete with the obligatory engine failure around breakfast time).  As we crawled back to the capital, and as I felt my sense of space shrinking to matched the crowded streets, I was able to fully appreciated the magical sense of space that Cox's Bazaar had, and the feeling of being around so many people were able to suspend their difficult lives for a few precious days to kick loose in the sand and run around like children. 

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka.  The opportunity to visit came through an invitation to some youth climate change  workshops that the Sri Lankan Youth Climate Action Network (SLYCAN) had sent out. I had little idea about the workshops, but life is all about throwing oneself into new possibilities so I jumped at the chance..

I had one night in Dhaka after returning from Nepal before setting out for Sri Lanka.  Apart from the ritualistic sorting and repacking of dirty/clean clothes,  I was filled with a curiosity of what lay ahead.  A whole new country… Buddhist religion… years of civil war… string hoppers… I was curious about everything, and these musings almost got the better of me at the airport, where I dreamily left my passport behind on a shop counter after purchasing a ‘vegetable roll’.  Twenty minutes before my flight I was frantically searching as were airport security when it was found in safe keeping at the ‘vegetable roll’ establishment.  

After touching down in Colombo I caught a smooth 2hr taxi ride to 'Raveli Beach Resort' where some of the youth deligates were staying.  There I had the doubly novel experience of having a beer with an Indian, Jayasimha, who was not only vegetarian but was doing a presentation about the large impact meat consumption has on climate change for the Humane Society International (beer and vegetarians are rarely sighted in Bangladesh).  This is an issue close to my heart (and stomach).  I also met Vositha, a Sri Lankan activist who was finishing her legal studies and was the powerhouse behind the workshops and SLYCAN, running on few funds and even fewer hours of sleep. 

The next day we attended a journalists' workshop and I delivered a brief presentation on the Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction (CMDRR) project that I am working on in Bangladesh. It was my first presentation on it, and I tried the hardest to believe all the words I was saying - conceptually my belief was there, but practically I had little exposure yet to the  CMDRR approach in action. Post workshop myself and Jayasimha were dazzled by slick brand shopping mall... where sunglasses in glass cabinets were selling for hundred of dollars, next to countless shelves of designer clothing... the silent mantra around us was to fall in love with the Image, and consume its material counterpart, the Product. It was a bit depressing to be reminded again of the pulling power of unfettered consumption, so the only remedy was some ice-cream consumption followed by a beautiful sunset dinner at the classic Galle Face Hotel, overlooking the lazy ocean rubbing up against the shore.  

The next morning I had some time to relax and spend by myself - precious time in a packed schedule of people people people.  Wandering along the beach and in the hotel I discovered some interesting facts about the way romance is negotiated here.  Like in Bangladesh, public displays of affection are seldom seen (though perhaps slightly more common here), and on the beach the canoodling is usually done behind a massive umbrella, or a rocky outcrop.  Meanwhile, at the hotel something else was going on... series of couples were presenting themselves to reception to then disappear for just a few hours. Later the hotel manager explained to me that the beach umbrellas were for people who 'could not afford to stay in my hotel'.  Aside from the lovers, the beach had considerable slum areas which were my first realisation of the poverty residing outside of the fancy hotels and shopping malls in downtown Colombo.

There were some more workshops over the next few days covering a range of broadly climate related issues.  I presented two - one on the crucial need for creativity in addressing climate change, the other on photography and social change.  An inspiring mix of young people attended the talks, and it was refreshing to speak about bold new worlds being created rather than dwelling always on the critique of the current.  I was particularly inspired by the two sisters behind the events - Vositha and Vishakha Wijenayake.  Polar opposites in personality, they somehow brought the events together, with particularly Vositha's persistence with getting things across the line.  Despite some disorganisation and some attendance issues - that is common when everything needs be done at the last minute with not enough people -the workshops themselves radiated a quiet authenticity and carved out a modest series of spaces for immodest ideas to be discussed and new worlds advanced.  I hope that the SLYCAN network was emboldened by the workshops and will organise more!


Socially too it was lovely to focus on quality, not quantity.  Spending time with the two sisters, and their friend Kaveesha, over cool drinks on quiet beaches, amongst the sway of palm trees and the nocturnal sighs of the ocean, was a beautiful relief to big dinners of Australian volunteers in dusty Dhaka.

There was a final, painful episode of the adventure that should be chronicled.  On the last day I was leaving for Kandy, a stunning town nestled in the forests above Colombo.  Running for the train, I slipped and fell on the railway tracks and ripped my right toenail.  Eheu! Bleeding and hobbling, I made it to the train brandishing my ticket (it was actually for the urging of someone on the platform that I needed a ticket which made me dash across the tracks in the first place), and tried to nonchalantly cover up the pooling blood.  This train lasted an hour, I then transferred to another train, this time for 3 hours.  I really tried to concentrate on the beautiful scenery passing by and not the growing pain in my foot.  However a very generous woman (who turned out to be a nurse) spotted my injury and insisted on taking me to the hospital in Kandy... which turned out to be overfull, so after visiting three private clinics, we found one that could take me in.  They prodded the toenail which was hanging on by about 8-12mm of flesh... meekly I said that we'd known each other for a long time and that could I keep the toenail... no it needed to come off apparently... I suggested that anesthetic would be a good practice, they said yes, they could provide it but its extra time and money, and by way of concluding the decision making they pulled off the nail then and there.  Words cannot really describe the pain, which was extended through forcible scrubbing of the exposed raw nail bed.  Bandaged up, I hobbled off finally to my actual destination - the temple of the Holy Tooth Relic (Sri Dalada Maligawa), which is said to have housed a tooth of the Buddha.  My mind was on toenails (or lack of them) instead of teeth, but it was nonetheless an interesting temple to explore.

When I arrived back in Colombo, Vositha, Vishakha and Kaveesha took me under their wing like the hobbling, bleeding bird that I was and treated me to lovely last dinner on the beach (on the way my contact lens blew out of my right eye into the sri lankan night yielding an otherworldly half-glow to my vision).    As the plane took off at early next morning (there was not a chance to sleep in between unfortunately), I could not help feeling grateful for the chance to visit this peaceful place, which seems like a little pocket outside of time.

Nepal

Leaving the no-place of the airport on 16th August, my colleague Kanika asked me whether I had noticed some differences between Kathmandu and Dhaka.  Once I opened my mouth in reply, surprisingly the observations poured out.  Firstly the diversity of the faces that we passed by – they ranged from south Asian, to east Asian to central Asian, in wide ranging palettes.  Secondary there were women everywhere!  I think I had acclimatized to the 70/30 to 80/20 ratio that you see on the streets here in Dhaka, and now this had been thoroughly overturned.  Moreover, there were women zooming by on motorbikes! Driving them rather than sitting side-saddle behind a man.  Crazyness!  Thirdly, as my eye scanned the roads and horizon, I became aware that my gazes was going up AND down through space – there was actually depth to the landscape!  (Dhaka shares with Melbourne the consistency of a flat plain).  Here valleys opened up between buildings and statues glinted on hilltops.  A fourth difference was actually seeing Western tourists – suddenly they appeared in the streets and out of the shops, walking turtles with their oversized backpacks and brand new hiking shoes.  In Dhaka the foreigners are generally NGO workers who flit between their office, their apartment, and the expat club in cars with tinted windows.  There’s not a backpack to be seen.

The first week was for work, with the five-strong Concern Universal team splitting into two, I was lucky enough to go on the scenic venture to Makwanpur, around 7 hours winding drive from Kathmandu.  Deep, lush vistas opened up around our packed little vessel as it wound it’s way around hilltops and through valleys.  The clouds which hung heavy at our level eventually opened up, and unpaved roads turned to slush. At one point I was introduced to an anti-bog technique of weighing down the car as much as possible when climbing the hills.  This involved various random people jumping in our car, hanging off the sides etc, which surprising worked to get us up the hill in bouts of terror and laughter. 

The Makwanpur District itself was beautiful, with a low-lying, unassuming river offering a peaceful expanse alongside paddy fields and the humble settlements of the town.  The next day there was a sharing meeting that brought together various local NGOs and government around the key issue of Disaster Risk Reduction and climate change.  It was good to see many young people attending (even if I couldn’t understand the Nepali).  I was a bit disappointed to see the lack of participation in the meeting but this is all part of the learning of how things are run over here.  Over the next few days we visited various schools and an NGO that had been implementing a DRR education project there - encompassing infrastructural changes (earthquake sensitive buildings etc) as well as community empowerment (local student and community clubs for sharing stories and co-learning). See report here.

Back in Kathmandu we visited an NGO that had an interesting arrangement between an community organic cooperative assisting to fund the local school which had an environmental curriculum. See report here.  There was a National level sharing meeting with many interesting speakers on climate change and disaster risk reduction, which drew many audience questions and responses.  It’s so hard to know the impact of these events, the extent of how far the ripples go out.  I hoped for the best.

The work trip ended after a week, and I was able to find myself again, which was a bit of a relief (I was the only one who didn’t speak Bangla or Nepali…).  Some of the Nepal AYADs had a spare room and were generous enough to let me stay in it over the next few days where I explored Kathmandu.  Sharmila, a generous model-turned-university-lecturer, showed me around her university, which included a visit to the fine art faculty where I was over-joyed to see actual art being created by a range of long haired characters which reminded me of studies at my art school.  They were very different to the paintings that you tended to see in the Thamel tourist area (such as 'Himalayan range', 'Woman in tribal dress carrying water jug', 'Himalayan range with water jug woman' etc).  

Despite a growing cold (a present I think some of my departing colleagues bequeathed to me), I managed to briefly escape Kathmandu and made it to Bhaktapur, an hour’s drive away with a beautiful old town centre crowded with dilapidated, beautiful temples and maze-like cobble-stoned alleys.  Groups of women would look down on me and other foreigners from their ancient wooden shuttered windows; a wave would return a smile.  I spent a delightful afternoon playing with children whilst sheltering in a shrine from the rain.  Another few elastic hours were spent talking with curious locals who invited me back to there home – two teenage daughter shared a room which was divided into their two choosen disciplines of science and management, with the textbooks piled high on either side.   Eventually though, it all had to come to an end, and on 29^th August I flew out and back home to… Dhaka.

Barisal Field Trip

My team at Concern Universal had a second field trip over July 2-5th, this time to a southern district called Barisal.  The trip formed part of our 'Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction' project, which involves working with 67 partner NGOs to build up their capacity to deliver their own community programs better.  Half of the trip involved this capacity building training, while the other half involved visiting a few villages and schools in which two partner organisations ran various education and training programs.   I was lucky enough to go this latter trip, and we were joined with representatives from the five partner NGOs that were from Nepal and they had traveled down to Bangladesh to join in this visit.

It was fascinating and harrowing to visit some of these villages, one of which was barely 500m from the Bay of Bengal.  During the massive Sidr cyclone in 2007, waves over 6m had pummeled the coast, including this village, which was devastated.  However through participating in some of disaster preparedness activities that the NGO was running, they were able to slowly build their resilience.  This included raising houses on mud platforms, building portable cooking stoves that families could take after disasters, using coconuts as floatation devices, and developing early warning systems.  Two years later the village was hit by cyclone Aila, but because of these interventions, damage was reduced.

During meeting the villages, seeing their preparations, and hearing their stories, I was moved by what these people had gone through, and the sheer tenacity and hope which they approached their situation.  They weren't going anywhere, and it was impressive to sense some of the pride that they had in their community.

It seems in start contrast to the clamouring and complaining that I am reading about in Australia regarding the carbon tax.  Over here, no one is debating climate change - their are no Lord Moncktons deniers spreading the seeds of doubt.  Millions have been facing a changing climate, and increasingly severe natural disasters, for decades, and thousands of NGOs, research institutes, and community initiatives have been quietly working away at methods of adapting to the onslaught.   At these times I cant help but to feel ashamed of my own country and our bubble of illusion that we are desperate to prop up, despite the fact that our denial is actually costing the lives and livelihoods of people here in Bangladesh. 

Further trip details are here.

Training trip – Bogra

I’ve just come back from a training trip to Bogra, in the north west of Bangladesh.  The training was for resource mobilization and monitoring/evaluation for 15 or so of our partner organisations – to essentially equip them better to deliver their programs on education, health and disaster preparedness mostly.  It was basically all in bangla so the content largely went over my head, apart from the odd word here or there.  I was doing photo and video documentation of the training so at least I could feel useful in some way... 

Unfortunately on the second day I got quite ill with some sort of nasty viral fever which left me largely bedridden for a couple of days, with aching muscles and a temperature.  Just when I was thinking things may be getting better, another disaster struck – while being in a bout of feverish delirium, my camera fell from its bag and my brand new $650 lens broke (or rather ‘bent’, not a good thing for a lens to do)!  I had discovered the low-point of the trip.  

From there things picked up a bit, I started to recover, and I had a nice last night chatting to co-workers and answering various Australia related questions, being the expert representative.

It was ultimately inspiring to meet so many people from different organisations, big and small, that are working at a grassroots level towards poverty alleviation.  I lost track of all their projects - but they gave me hope.  Another positive thing was that I able to make some beautiful photographs.

On the way there:

During a field visit to one of the partner organisations and their village:

During the training at Bogra:

Working at Concern Universal Bangladesh

I’ve been at my work Concern Universal (or ‘Concern’) for almost two weeks now. It is an incredible organisation which seems to have achieved so much since starting in Bangladesh in 1993 (head office is UK, they have chapters in 12 countries).  They use a strong community empowerment ethic which translates into working with a range of local organisations to build up their capacity to serve their community better – trainings on climate change, disaster management, resource capacity building and so forth.  In the main project I'm working on, there are 67 different partner organisations  57 in Bangladesh and 5 each in India and Nepal.  Every one has a different acronym...!  

During the time so far I’ve been doing mostly reading of reports and other 'desk research' – internal ones to try to find out what other staff are actually doing, and external docs relating to climate change issues and adaptation practices.

The staff are friendly and luckily for me they speak English well.  Quite a few of them sing well too – both my female co-workers have beautiful voices that they spontaneous burst into song with from time to time.