Trinity Church in Knebworth

offers you a warm welcome

Amruta is 14 years old and she lives with her brother and his wife, because both her parents have died. She says many things in her life are very difficult. Her brother is a rickshaw driver and his wife works in the garment factory. They don’t earn a lot of money. They also support Amruta’s other brother, who is unemployed. When she doesn’t go to school, Amruta cleans and cooks to help her sister-in-law. She would like to be a teacher when she grows up.

This typical story from a vulnerable girl in the slum district of Duaripara in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was all too prevalent in 2004 and inspired the Church of Bangladesh to intervene in this poverty stricken area. All they needed was someone to implement and manage the project and someone to fund it!

Oasis, a Christian international development agency with an office in Dhaka, and Trinity Church Knebworth, using funding from Borne Bequest, agreed to fill these roles for an initial period of three years and the ‘Duaripara Family Development Project’ was born. Since then, lots has happened and the three year relationship has been extended.

The project aims to improve the lives of around 100 families in the area. This takes the form of:

• providing young girls, who would otherwise end up working in Dhaka’s infamous garment factories, with primary education so that they can enter formal education at secondary level;

• running a regular health clinics with the project nurse, Dipti, that anyone can come to. Once a week a Doctor also attends to prescribe any medication, with the project providing any necessary funding.

• regular house visits to check health status, particularly in houses with newly born babies. Dietary and sanitary advice is imparted, and babies regularly weighed to check growth and help avoid stunting.

For the first 2 years, Trinity church received regular updates and news from the project, as well as annual visits from Joanne, the project coordinator. However, many people from Trinity wanted to know more about how the project worked. To convey the message of the project in a way that emails cannot do, Laura Bonnett and James Cole, two members of Trinity Church, were asked to visit the project towards the end of the third year. They brought back the photos you see here and brought the project to life for many at Trinity through stories and experiences. Laura was able to impart some of her teaching skills to the teachers in Duaripara whilst James helped them prepare for the 3rd year evaluation.

Laura with some of the girls

Shortly after this evaluation, the Duaripara project was beset by some bad news. In February 2008, with less than 24 hours notice, the caretaker Bangladeshi government (at present an un-elected military government) announced slum clearances in the Duaripara area. The reason they gave was corruption surrounding the land ownership. Ostensibly a valid point, but the clearances were not carried out in a pro-poor manner, as some of the pictures show. The project premises were flattened, despite all proper land registration certificates being shown. Hundreds of surrounding homes were bulldozed also.

In the first few days after the demolition, Joanne’s team’s main task was accounting for all the girls and their families. Some families decided to move away, so the project provided a rucksack and educational materials so that those children that did leave the area could continue schooling elsewhere.

Since February 2008, many lessons have continued in the garage of the project’s nurse, Dipti, as shown below! The current medium to long term objectives of the project staff are to find replacement premises whilst maintaining the remarkable momentum and acceptance a Christian (but non-evangelical) project has found in an Islamic community.

Members of Trinity reacted strongly to the demolitions that took place with so little warning and so little respect for poor people. Part of our response was to petition the UK government, asking them to urge the Government of Bangladesh to, at the very least, provide adequate resettlement options to those affected. Over 200 people signed the petition, and in July 2008, the UK government responded.