by Ali Symons with CRWRC in Bangladesh: “I can’t get enough of these great stories!”
Visiting “the field” at CRWRC-Bangladesh was such a rush. Most of the time I was working in the Dhaka head office, writing grant applications and doing communications work, but near the end of my six-month term, I left the busy city and visited CRWRC partners in different parts of Bangladesh. My job: to talk to the participants of self-help groups and record their stories.
Listening to stories! This job was exciting for a number of reasons. First of all because I believed in CRWRC’s good work with these groups, and secondly, there was the adventure of traveling to a remote area—by creaky plane, bumpy jeep or rickety rickshaw—seeing the varied scenery of Bangladesh, and then sitting down with total strangers to hear about how their lives had changed. Their stories would eventually end up in annual reports and grant applications as examples of the good work that the CRWRC partners are engaged in.
One visit takes me to a dimly lit mud house up in northern Bangladesh, where I meet the Chameli (Waterlily) women’s group, twenty-four women who have been meeting for two years. They stand or squat on the floor in colourful sharis, listening intently to each other, just as they do at their weekly meetings, where they save money and take lessons. Razheda is one of the more vocal ones, a slim figure in a red and black shari. “I couldn’t read or write before joining,” she explains, “and I was so embarrassed when I had to use a thumb print to sign a contract.” After several years of literacy lessons, she now can write down group minutes and do simple accounting. Many other women pipe up with similar stories. “We’ve been saving five taka [10 Canadian cents] a week. I’ve taken a loan from this fund to start a jewelry business,” says Koliarhana, an older member. “But this is not enough. We want to save enough money to pay for school fees for our children.” One of the field workers, who has been acting as my translator, responds to these women: “You’ve already come a long way, and now you can plan to reach this goal.”
Switch scenes to Panchagorh, in northwestern Bangladesh, where I am on another field visit, this time with a more senior leadership group. It’s an unusually mixed crowd—men and women, Hindu and Muslim—and they sit around a table in a house they built themselves. The group is still riding high from a recent visit by Canadian filmmakers, who came to document their incredible success, a product of sixteen years of hard work. Abdul Aziz is the lively, potbellied chairman, and he is only too pleased to relate the story of their collective transformation: “The people in this area were skeptical about getting involved. We didn’t want to associate with people of another religion. We wouldn’t even eat together.” But Abdul explains that groups started to meet, and over several years a leadership structure developed. Now the commitment has paid off and the Panchagorh community collectively owns their own rice mill, cow fattening facilities, and even their own school. People who were barely supporting their families on their dollar-a-day wages now eat well, save for the future, and take pride in their group’s accomplishments. “There are too many successes to name,” says Abdul with a huge smile.
What a privilege it was to witness these two particular points on the long arc to development: a new group and a senior group. CRWRC-Bangladesh has a wildly ambitious vision for these groups, that they would thrive as individuals, succeed as communities and live in the abundance that God intended for them. The Chameli group was at the beginning stages, still learning how to help themselves. And the Panchagorh group is further along, helping each other and thinking about how best to use their resources. It was my joy to record these stories and to learn about the larger, wonderful story that these groups are part of: how CRWRC is helping to bring God’s kingdom to Bangladesh.
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