Welcome ISDE Bangladesh as a Blue Community!
ISDE Bangladesh, the Integrated Social Development Effort (ISDE) Bangladesh, joins the Blue Community Network. ISDE is an organisation entrusted to serve disadvantaged women, hazardous children, coastal fishing communities, persons with disability, migrants, ethnic minorities, sex-workers, transgender (hijra) communities, Rohingya refugees, non-local refugees & climate migrants displaced in southeastern part of Bangladesh. As an organization from the southeastern coastal part of Bangladesh, ISDE always try to focus on the issues of the marginalized and disadvantaged community people of these areas.
ISDE Bangladesh has been implementing a number of activities to respond to the climate change issues of the targeted people and it has integrated the climate change issues with its ongoing programme. It has become an active member of Climate Action Network-South Asia (CANSA), Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods-CSRL and NGO Coordination Council for Climate Change (NC4) networks, Bangladesh Working Group on Ecology and Development (BWGED), Water Move Bangladesh.
Water is a key part of ISDE’s climate programme, with campaigns for access to safe drinking water and sanitation (WATSAN). Access to safe drinking water is a problem for the community people in coastal, hilly and backward project areas that are deprived of government facilities. Most community people cannot afford to install tube wells. The number of existing tube wells cannot meet the community’s needs. With the support of the NGO Forum for Public Health, ISDE Bangladesh uses a cost-sharing mechanism to help beneficiaries install tube and ring wells. ISDE has also established a latrine production center and latrines are sold at the cost of production.
On World Water Day 2023, ISDE Bangladesh together with partner organisations held a Water Hearing in Chakaria to demand urgent action by the government to stop the drinking water crisis on the coast. ISDE, in collaboration with CAB, also carried out various campaigns to stop the privatisation of water and related services and to stop plastic bottles in various educational institutions, market places and streets.
S M Nazer Hossain, Executive Director of ISDE, states:
«Water is a basic human right for all. A major portion of people who live in coastal areas of Bangladesh are facing a serious crisis for water. Also in urban areas, slum dwellers and low-income community people do not have safe water for domestic purposes. Besides commercialization, water is a growing business in both urban and coastal areas. As a result, water purification, bottled water, jars, and other businesses
are expanding more.»
The Blue Community Network welcomes the Integrated Social Development Effort ISDE as its first partner organisation in Bangladesh. We look forward to working together to promote the human right to water and sanitation, to campaign for water as a common good and to defend it against commodification and commercialisation, and – an issue of paramount importance to Bangladesh – to strive for good quality tap water for all, everywhere, banning bottled water and plastic pollution. With ISDE Bangladesh, the Blue Community has a strong partner to develop and spread these values and the network throughout the country and the subcontinent.
