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Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) Bangladesh and Action Research on

Community Based Adaptation (ARCAB) present:

NATIONAL SHARING MEETING

YOUTH LEADING COMMUNITY BASED ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Spectra (Gulshan 1, Dhaka), 26th of September 2013

Morning session:

Chair: Sajid Raihan, Deputy Director, Programs, Policy and Campaigns, Action Aid Bangladesh

Facilitator: Carolien Pronk, Research Advisor, Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO)

1. Opening speech by Shahana Hayat, Country Director, VSO Bangladesh

Shahana Hayat begins her speech by stating that climate change is one of the greatest threats the world

is facing. She says that the impacts of climate change are multidimensional and will affect food security,

water availability and energy availability. In order to address these climate change issues Bangladesh

needs to go through transformational changes in the intellectual level and in the governance level both

regionally and globally. She puts emphasis on the importance of making the youth more aware of

climate change so they could engage in activities to address these issues. She continues and states that

now that VSO is a part of the ARCAB network, a platform should be developed where these two bodies

(VSO and ARCAB) can work with each other to understand the adverse effects of climate change. She

ends her speech by saying “We look forward to working together”.

2. Welcome by Carolien Pronk, Research Advisor, VSO Bangladesh

Carolien Pronk gives an outline of the objectives of the VSO workshop, which is to share ideas in order to

get the views of the other participating NGO’s and local parter organisation. Specifically the youth

volunteers that represent their youth clubs are welcomed; their contribution is crucial for today’s

programme. This programme is about youth and therefore is developed with youth. She says that by the

end of today’s workshop VSO aims to identify the aspects of their future programme on climate change,

in which youth plays a central role.. Through this workshop the representatives of the local communities

will bring to light the nature of changes that their experiences in their livelihoods due to climate change

and environmental degradation.

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Carolien continues to discuss how in Bangladesh climate change impact in differently in country. We

need always to include the local communities in our programme preparation and development in order

to know what forms of adaptation are most pressing in their district and Upazilla. Carolien also says she

has conducted the research on climate change in which governance is taken as a cross cutting issue. She

says that research was carried out through Key Informant Interviews and Focus Group Discussions in five

districts: Satkhira, Bagerhat, Rangpur, Dinajpur and Khagrachari. In her speech Carolien mentions that

Bangladesh is extremely densely populated and as the country is only 4-5 m above sea level floods

occurs quite frequently. The rising sea level is likely to cause a huge area of land to be submerged. She

says that although climate change causes environmental degradation human behavior also has a role to

play in degrading the environment. As approximately 80% of the population lives in rural areas natural

environmental degradation has a huge impact on their lives. Carolien ends her speech by saying that

although there is a decline in poverty from 1990 to 2005 if we look to income level numbers. However,

the multidimensional poverty numbers show that 56% of the people still live in poverty in Bangladesh

(see concept note of the national sharing meeting).

3. Research Results by Carolien Pronk

Experiences due to climate change and environmental degradation in different regions of Bangladesh

1. Rise in temperature

Rise in temperature is seen as a result of climate change. A survey was carried out to discover the effects

of rising temperature on the lives of the local people. The survey indicated the following effects due to

rise in temperature:

Rise in temperature has adverse effects on the agriculture of the local area as it causes lack of

water available for agriculture

It causes shortage of water for drinking purposes

Lack of water for sanitation affects the health sector, as there is a shortage of clean water

A rise in temperature will cause glacier ice to melt, which raises the sea level and increases

flooding

The North West region of the country suffers the greatest impact of rising temperature and

drought

2. Sea level rise and flooding

Through a GIS base map of Bangladesh the flood prone areas were shown in the power point

presentation. A color-coded map was shown to demonstrate the intensity of flooding in different

regions of the country.

Satkhira and Bagerhat areas are mainly affected by sea level rise. Sea level rise and shrimp

farming cause salinity intrusion, which affects the coastal areas and islands.

Sea level rise is discussed further. Between 1993 and 2003 +1.8 mm/year rise in sea level was

seen. After 2013 the increase in sea level per year is predicted to be much greater.

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Lives of people living in low lying areas will be affected due to sea level rise, which means more

flooding, as water will move inland.

Study shows that: 10 cm rise affects 2%, 25 cm rise affects 4%,27 cm rise affects approximately

88% area.

Flooding causes damage to agriculture, water bodies, infrastructure etc.

The Sundarbans (UNESCO Protected area) is losing its biodiversity. 11% population will be

affected directly if the Sundarbans region is damaged. It will cause a huge loss in income,

degradation of ground water resources and stresses on existing settlements. Displacement of

the population will occur. It is predicted that sea level rise will cause a huge population to

migrate, as they will lose their land.

3. Effects of cyclone

A map was shown demonstrating cyclone affected regions of the country

Cyclones and storm surges affect marine fishing and infrastructure.

Bagerhat, Khulna and Satkhira districts usually experience cyclones at least once every three

years but due to climate change the frequency and intensity may increase.

The people living in Dinajpur are suffering consequences of cyclones. Satkhira faces the highest

number of cyclones and 30% of the people in the area are affected.

4. Drought

The effects of drought were discussed and the research findings were shown.

The intensity of rainfall is changing. The unpredictability of rainfall timing causes problems with

agriculture.

Another problem is increasing drought, specifically in north western parts of Bangladesh.

Khulna and Satkhira regions will experience less rainfall, which is causing drought in these areas.

The weather patterns are changing.

On average, the temperature increased from 29.5 degrees Celsius in 1840 to 30.5 degrees

Celsius in 2010. This increase in temperature causes drought and has a huge impact on

agriculture.

What do people experience? People in Bagerhat experiences the extremes of flood, salinity, drought,

cyclones, water logging, tidal surge, kal boishakhi etc, indicating that Bagerhat currently is affected most

by climate changes in Bangladesh.

What do people need mostly in times of disaster?

Money

o to survive

o to fix the damage (house, agriculture etc)

o to reestablish their livelihood. Often people take loans or borrow money from others.

A lot of household damages are also seen as a result of flooding. The impact on agriculture is

higher. Sometimes land area is no longer available for cultivation of crops.

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How to build resilience:

We need to learn how to manage a disaster before and after the disastrous event occurs.

Bear the losses.

Develop community institutes to share the loss and overcome. For example it is helpful to

establish community insurance to rescue people when disaster strikes.

It is important to take preparation before the disaster strikes. Taking precaution helps

tackling the situation better.

Modify the threat:

Take precautions against threats, like building house in higher lands in flood prone regions.

Seed storage in safe dry areas, so that they can be used in times of disaster

Set up women’s Self Help Groups creating biodiversity based natural products (handicrafts)

When areas are waterlogged due to floods, it is helpful if people facing the disaster are

equipped to change their profession to save their livelihood

In Satkhira area many people have quit agriculture to start shrimp farming as shrimps farming is a

profitable business and well functioning in saline water. However shrimp farming may not be

sustainable in the long term as sometimes after a few years shrimps get diseases and dies leaving the

land unsuitable for agriculture. Therefore, finding the right adaptation method is quite difficult. It is

important to keep people aware of the different problems they are likely to face in order to develop

sustainable ways of adaptation. VSO helps creating awareness and advises people in order to develop

suitable adaptation strategies.

Disaster might lead people to migrate. When land is inhabitable people tend to migrate to different

areas. In Bagerhat when there is no work left in their own area after a disaster people from the area

move to Khulna or Dhaka in search for jobs. Further there is seasonal migration. VSO tries to prevent

migration by helping people adjust and adapt to the changes in their rural communities.

What can VSO do?

VSO can develop and implement programmes to support local people adaptation strategies. VSO

volunteers, both national and international, work currently in eight districts, mainly through youth clubs

and senior volunteer groups. Together with the poor and marginalized people in their community they

can implement activities to build these people’s resilience to climate change and environmental

degradation.

1. Adaptation to improve access to water:

To take preventive measures from cyclones, it is crucial to increase awareness.

To prevent water logging, river excavations can be made.

To improve the drainage of river systems, river canals and bridges can be built.

To adjust to salinity a suitable solution is to carry our rainwater harvesting during monsoon

season to preserve fresh drinking water.

2. Adaptation food security:

Build flood resilient crop storage facilities.

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Develop flood/drought/ saline/ heat tolerant crops.

Home gardening

Plant medical plants

For food security alternative livelihoods is suggested, for example- handicrafts, so that people are not

wholly dependent on agriculture or aquaculture for their survival.

3. Adaptation to improve WASH+:

Protecting fresh drinking water through rising tube wells plinth

Constructing mini ponds for conservation of surface water

Increase infrastructure for waste disposal in order to improve sanitation facilities

Adapt technological solutions to prevent vector-borne diseases and epidemics

Improve the health care system

Improve public education and literacy rate in various communities

4. In case of droughts:

Establish seed storage facilities

Set up women’s Self Help Groups creating biodiversity based natural products (handicrafts) so

that agriculture is not the only source of income

Local partner organizations and international volunteers work together with national volunteer to

create awareness in rural communities on climate change and help people adapt to the changing

situation.

4. Presentation of Pilot Projects

1. Gram Bikash Kendro (GBK), Dinajpur: Rainwater Harvesting

Presented by Rabiul, Community Volunteer and Mahmud, focal person GBK

Rainwater harvesting strategy

The western part of the country mainly faces water problems.

In the village people usually need water for food preparation, drinking purposes, showering

purposes, to ensure proper sanitation and for other household purposes as well.

These problems are higher during the months of March to June and climate change enhances

these problems in the villages.

Rainwater harvesting methods are used in the village to ensure availability of fresh water.

Rainwater harvesting: The village built a 10000-liter reservoir tank to store rainwater during

monsoon season, in order to supply water to the community during the dry season.

Other club initiatives of GBK:

Installed bio gas plant in the village.

Cultivated chemical free vegetables in the village.

Club initiative- BIO Gas Plant, to solve the fuel crisis in the households in Dinajpur.

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Suggestions for tree planting: Neem tree planting is encouraged, as they kill insects and they can

also be used for medicinal purpose.

The replacement of Eucalyptus trees by Neem trees is encouraged, as it is a lost cost tree with

medicinal purposes and also because Eucalyptus trees absorb too much water.

Climate change effects:

Increased drought leads to fewer productions of the agricultural crops, which results in high

costs.

In case of Eucalyptus, the cultivation rate is higher but it decreases the ground water level.

Climate Change creates water scarcity in the surrounding area.

Maximum time’s soil is much warmer and the ground water level is lower than expected.

Expectations of the youth club:

The club cultivates traditional herbal crops without pesticides so that the community gets

chemical free vegetables.

During the dry season the club can provide water for 20 days to the local 115 people(consider

04 liter / person /day)

Youth club income is likely to increase

It will be possible to cultivate vegetable in dry season

Ambitions:

Club should be more independent and they need more funding to improve their activities

They have other activities such as turtle cultivation

At least 5 new tanks will be implemented in the village

They need to dig 4-5 ponds for water harvesting purposes

More climate friendly interventions can be introduced

Questions and Answers:

– Is the ground water level decrease caused by human intervention? As it is a coal mine area. A

huge amount of water uptake is needed to run the coal mining systems. Irrigation is decreasing

the ground water level.

– Is there any biological form of pest controlling? Traditional practice suggests that by using ash

pests can be controlled. What kind of plants are you prioritizing? What are the plants? Plants

like Cauliflower, chili, brinjal are mainly prioritized

– What is the number of people in your community? What kind of research have you done so far?

Which investment is done? And how is the community participating during the allocation of

funds? The village participation is vital for decision-making. The community hosts a meeting

with all stakeholders for decision-making. We have different group for different things so we

have good involvement of the community and village people participation. There is a committee

of 5-8 people for various matters, they discuss and make discussions. Initially youth club

members have a savings fund then a discussion is carried out amongst the committee members.

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2. Container garden project, Mongla

Presented by: Simon Chibi, Nasima and Rehana

Roles of youth club presented Simon:

To motivate the women farmers

To mobilize the community

To assists elderly farmers with activities

To act as an immediate advisory to the community

What has been done so far:

Provided vegetable growing training to women farmers

Distributed 5 vegetable containers to each of the woman farmers

Distributed 5 packets of seeds to each farmer which the women filled with fresh soil and planted

the seeds.

Monitored progress and feedback of the project; at the moment most crops are at the

vegetative stage.

Key Points:

Poor women are helping their families by participating in these kinds of projects; their food

production increases.

Women are earning money by producing chemical free vegetables. Therefore women get a

higher status in society.

Expected Results:

Increased vegetable production.

Women are helping the community.

Developing towards a VSO model village.

Women can help create sustainability. They are helping the community by rearing chickens,

producing vegetables so they can also protect the community.

Vegetables are produced for the family diet.

More vitamins and minerals in the daily diet for these families.

Healthy and active children in the family.

Income generation from selling vegetables.

Better knowledge on growing vegetables.

Experience in growing vegetables in containers.

Answers and Questions:

- How does VSO select these families? The villages have women groups; the groups select

members amongst themselves for the pilot projects. How can you relate the climate resilience

with your project? What is the source of irrigation water? By a) inimizing the water usages, then

we can use the water for drinking purposes and b) during the rainy reason people don’t need to

water supply as there is sufficient rainfall to irrigate the soil, but during the dry seasons VSO

community preserves water in containers for irrigation purposes.

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– How many plants do you have in these containers? You have provided 5 containers for each

family, is this enough? What is the average family size in a community? There are minimum 5

plants in each container. Usually this is enough but this is based on family size. Some families

have 4 members whereas some has 7 members. In smaller families, there are excess vegetables

to generate income.

- Regarding the youth volunteers, are they students? How are they engaged in these projects?

The youth volunteers are both students and non-students (family member), some of them are

married as well. However they all engage themselves and participate in these projects.

– Shahana Hayat discussed the structure of youth club. She stated that in Bangladesh the access

to nutrition is a bigger problem than access to food. Climate change is directly related to

nutrition availability.

– Imrul Khan said that women are considered as strong community member.

– Another member in the audience said that we can increase the water storage capacity. The

technology is quite cheap and it is easily replaceable.

– Syed Md. Iqbal Ali mentioned how technology is relevant to this project and how adaptation is

relevant to innovation.

– Member of the audience asked if the gender issues have been addressed. She also asked how

women could overcome their problems. The main agenda of VSO is encouraging women to

participate in different community activities and fortunately women are taking part in different

community activities. Climate change affects women, therefore VSO equips women to speak,

suggest and become sustainable. Women are equipped to generate income for their family.

3. Arsenic Water Filter

Presented by Renaissance, Chitalmari (Bagerhat)

They started the presentation with an overview of the water problems Bangladesh is accustomed to

facing in the past years and in present times. They pointed that the objective is to start a pilot project

with VSO and the youth community to help resolve some of the water pollution problems.

Water related problems in the village are: iron, arsenic and bacteria

Generally water problems occur in villages. Women are travelling a long away to bring water

from the pond. But this water is usually polluted with microorganisms and other harmful metal

pollutants; therefore the water has to go through a filter before it can be used.

Aim to ensure clean drinking water safe from arsenic, iron and bacteria.

Filter 1: Iron filter

Takes iron and partly arsenic away

There are 6 filters, each filter can be used by 3-5 households

However it is not known how long it will function well

The challenges with this project are a bad smell, but can be solved by good cleaning of the filter

It takes an hour for the process if it is performed by 1 person

It is easy to use

Rusty nails for cleaning purpose

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Tube well filter:

Have to clear the filters every day to prevent bad smell.

Iron clogs and creates bad smell. Two problems in the tube wells are iron and arsenic.

Filter 2: Co precipitation and bio sand filtration - Pond filter:

Huge amounts of bacteria and dust. There are problems with tube wells, therefore the tube well

filters get rid of arsenic and iron but maintenance is more difficult.

Cost of both filters:

1st Filter: 1,000 BDT per household, including annual maintenance cost per household (assuming

5 households use the STW)

2nd Filter 2,250 – 2,750 per household including annual maintenance

Questions and answers:

- How does VSO approach the root level and spread the program? How is the water distributed?

The senior committee and youth club members discussed and chose which areas are suitable for

setting up filters. They usually do this by carrying out fruitful discussions with the local people

and by analyzing which area is suitable for implementing the project. The youth club also tests

how much arsenic is present in tube wells and ponds.

- There was an arsenic remediation suggestion from the audience. Arsenic binds with iron to form

a precipitate. This precipitation can be to make brick, known as arsenic brick. This technology

can help in areas with tube well problems.

4. Theory of Change, by Carolien Pronk

A chart is shown. The top of the chart has the main aim and the goal that needs to be reached. Then

follows the impacts.

The theory of change focuses on how to make change more sustainable. It is important to build

awareness, it is important to create awareness amongst mothers and their children. The proposed

model of Theory of Change intends to know the high level outputs as well as the low level outputs in

order to understand the capacity to adapt to climate change. As poor and disadvantaged people (like

disabled people, people from different ethnicities and women) are more likely to face problems

associated with climate change intensively, VSO model village mainly priorities these people. VSO

believes that climate change impacts need to be dealt with together. Therefore VSO intends to build the

capacity of the local organizations, which are trying to help the poor. VSO focuses on Poor and Marginal

People (PMP) so that they are able to maintain agriculture and produce food in changing climates. VSO

believes that it is important for PMP to increase resilience for food security against climate variability,

therefore it is important to share information on climate variability and to teach people what to

cultivate and where to do it. VSO also believes that in order to improve health and prevent illness there

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should be focus on WASH+. The main theme of VSO’s theory of change is livelihoods and climate change

adaptation. The theory of change of VSO focuses on the following topics:

1. Improve food security for poor people: Increase the survival capacity of poor people. Local

government institutions might be able to increase capacity building and food capacity.

2. Improve the diversification of livelihoods. New technology will be provided to all the people.

And one community’s success projects and adaptation strategies should be shared with other

communities, in order to enhance everyone’s knowledge on various technologies. Therefore by

establishing these sharing strategies VSO is trying to create a platform.

3. Improves access to fresh water andproper sanitation and hygiene: It is important to address

the health issues.

4. Financial resources: Financial aid is crucial so VSO tries to arrange aid.

Food preservation is one of the ways VSO aims to improve food security. Access to food under any

climate circumstance is vital, therefore VSO wants to preserve food with good quality storage capacity.

They want to create a functional market where the local community people will sell their products to

their own community and they can also provide food to the other communities as well. VSO believes

that people need to prepare against climate change so that these changes do not affect food security.

Local government institutions support these developments and inform local people on changes in

weather and climate. That information can be shared to everyone in the village to create more

awareness. It is a two way process, firstly knowing how to access the resources and secondly to ensuring

sustainability of the resources. VSO also supports the people in need to understand how to access

financial resources and how to utilize them. They aim to create awareness about various systems that

could be helpful.

The presentation of theory of change ended with the VSO goals and objectives to help people adapt to

climate change and other problems such as food security, water management and financial issues.

Lunch Break (1.15pm - 2pm)

Afternoon Session:

Chair: Syed Md. Iqbal Ali, Direcor, ARCAB

Speaker: Imrul Hasan Khan, Head of Programs, VSO Bangladesh

5. Mind mapping sessions

After lunch mind mapping sessions were conducted. Four groups were made and each group had

different topics. The groups were allowed one hour to carry out a discussion on these topics and then

they created a mind map with key ideas and points. The mind map was then presented to the audience.

Presentation: 1 Youth and Gender

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Members of this group gave an overview of how climate change has impacts on both men and women.

They shared what they have experienced through working with people and they addressed gender

issues as well as issues regarding the safety of women. For example, issues such as eve teasing and

domestic violence were also brought up. The presenter expressed the challenges for women regarding

climate change issues. They mentioned women’s role in ensuring food security, water availability for

drinking, bathing and other sanitary purposes. They discussed how women from coastal areas are more

vulnerable when the area is hit by cyclones and other environmental disasters. In social culture women

are usually deprived. For example in the ship breaking industry employment is informal so women end

up getting less wage then men for the same amount of workload. They discussed seasonal migration

and how women cannot evacuate an area as fast as men can. In order to solve these problems various

recommendations for improvement were suggested. Recommendation for Improvement:

Health

• Improve health governance; ensure better facilities in existing hospitals.

• Develop gender friendly infrastructure in community hospitals.

• Community health clinic can integrate women’s health and safety

• Participation of youth in community health care

• Establish health camp or drop in center in villages

• Train youth about better health care

Food security and livelihood:

• Replicate tested innovative agriculture and other alternative food sources

• Increase the use of saline tolerant rice varieties.

• Livelihood suggestion: reintroducing the indigenous crops.

Water management

• Lack of water resources: women tend to collect the water.

• To ensure use of clean and safe water to prevent diseases.

• Community water resource management

• Introduction of alternative source of clean water

DRR and CCA

• Coordinate with NGO, Union Parishad

• Awareness capacity building: schools, households and the community need to e more

prepared for disasters.

• Developing an early warning system.

• Introduce adaptation methods in the community.

• Improve disaster shelter.

Question and answer:

- Can you ensure safety for women in disaster prone areas? A possible solution is to build

awareness, increase the community and school level preparations, developing early warning

mechanisms and finally this will increase the involvement of the youth.

– Women and girls should get the opportunity to socialize; there should not be any gender

specific jobs. They should be decision makers and they should be paid equally so men feel the

need to take recommendations from women.

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Presentations 2: Youth and Water Management

This presentation started with explanting the limitations and challenges associated with ground water

and surface water. The members of this group discussed about the limitations and also challenges for

the youth in case of water management. They discussed the lack of availability of clean ground water.

They have also discussed arsenic contamination in ground water, as it is one the major issues polluting

the environment. They also mentioned the problems regarding salinity intrusions. The problems

associated with surface water were mainly bacterial and microbial contamination, industrial waste

dumping and therefore it is a struggle to get access to clean surface water. They even mentioned the

problems with rainwater, which included precipitation and microbial contamination. They went on to

point out the importance of sustainable water management and the need for the youth to raise their

voice on this matter. They ended their presentation by suggesting solutions to overcome water

problems. Suggested solutions to overcome water problems:

Awareness, raise the social/cultural knowledge

Youth should participate to the trans boundary water sharing issues by: raising their voice,

active participation in decision making processes, bottom-up linkages

Solutions for ground and surface water problems are:

Different kind of initiatives are being taken by different kinds of organizations but the activities

and purposes of these initiatives need to be combined for a greater result.

Do more campaigns and ensure the involvement of youth and community people.

Youth may also facilitate to the pilot projects.

They can also take part in motivational work.

Ground water recharges solutions:

Work for raising awareness.

Forming a youth group that looks over regular maintenance

Youths should get the opportunity to talk on policy matters

Building youth ownership

Recommendations from the audience: VSO can participate in solving water issues; VSO can also

encourage the youth to take part in these kinds of issues.

Presentation 3: Youth and Food security

The presentation began with the presenter mentioning the threats of the food security. He states that

the factors affecting food security are sea level rise, drought, salinity, changes in weather pattern,

fluctuation of sea level and temperature rise. Then the presenter went on to discuss the suggested

remediation methods to ensure food security and the youth can help achieve it. Suggested for

remediation methods are:

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Build youth capacity by enhancing local knowledge of the science involved in climate change and

food security matters.

Spread knowledge to help communities mitigate problems

Increase the use of saline or drought tolerant plants

cope up with disasters through application of new/current technologies and adaptive methods

Increase people’s local food production and self subsistence. Thereby the youth should be

willing to take up challenges during capacity building.

In case of food security everything is related to one another. No solution can be achieved

without linking all the variables.

Presentation 4: Youth and Climate governance

The aim of the presentation was to address how we define youth and climate governance and what the

main relationship between the two is. The presenter states that the relationship depends on the specific

needs of the respective person in context. People from different regions are facing different impacts of

climate change and therefore they will need different information and training. Youth representatives

are important, it is crucial provide a platform for the youth so that they can cooperate and relate with

various policies. There should be technology for the youth to share their experiences and spread their

knowledge. Possible solutions are as follow:

Short term goals (0- 2 years)

Maximum of the youth wants to do something about these problems; the barrier is

governance and lack of opportunity. Therefore it is important to share the information and

present opportunity to the youth.

Collaboration with the organization those who are working these kinds of work on Climate

Change will strengthen them and give them support.

Mid Term Goals (1-5 years)

Creating a platform for youth representatives, we need a platform where all youth

especially girls can raise their voice.

Encouraging the youth towards journalism, especially climate change related journalism and

creating youth forums.

Long Term Goals (5-10 years)

Start youth movement and campaign. Youth led parties in collaboration with all stakeholders.

To implement all of this we need major advocacy and support from all parties. And we need to

ensure that the systems and processes should be sustainable and smooth.

Recommendations:

VSO should provide an social audit and created the platform to talk directly to the community

authorities by creating a local youth leader.

VSO should make a “speak up, raise your voice” training proposal. However some participants

question whether it is really necessary to do speak up training. Training and knowledge should

be specific to each person and specific to each area. Everyone does not need the same training.

It will benefit people more if they receive the training or knowledge that they actually need

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rather than a general training session. We have to find out what we have to do and what is

necessary and then strengthen the capacity.

6. Concluding Remarks, Syed Iqbal Ali, Director of Programmes ARCAB

Syed Iqbal Ali said that in this workshop there has been focus on development and climate change. He

said that it is not possible to think about the impacts of climate change while millions of people are

without food. Therefore the first objective should be development and then it is crucial to ensure

sustainability. More diverse discussion was encouraged and he states that the youth is very important

and without relating the youth it is not possible to think about climate change. Syed Md. Iqbal Ali then

goes on to speak about how the youth can play a pivotal role in bringing about transformed resilience to

climate change in Bangladesh.

7. The way forward, by Imrul Khan, Head of Programmes VSO Bangladesh

Imrul Khan ends the workshop with his final speech. He states that it was a great opportunity to be able

to speak out to the all the participants who came from rural areas and other frontier parts of the

country. He really appreciated the energy and level of dedication of all the presenters. He also expresses

his gratitude towards the ARCAB team for providing the logistics and the volunteering supports to make

this workshop successful. He finishes his speech by stating that he is looking forward to working

together with ARCAB in the future and he thanks the young generation for cooperating in this venture.