Grassroots Voices
BANGLADESH
Fighting with
the Adverse
Anika Nawar Oishi
Picture credit: Travelblog
natural calamities, the effect of
the disaster can be reduced to
a greater scale with the help of
the local people. In order for the
message to be effective, it has to
be transmitted to every nook and
corner of the village.
For faster and easier transmission,
crowded areas can be sorted
out as the main spots for
announcements of any sort.
People can then disseminate
the message on broader terms.
Eventually, it can reach within
every part of the village through
word of mouth.
Picture Credit: The Daily Star
When a massive landslide
catastrophe hit Bangladesh
in June of 2017, studies were
conducted to determine
the reasons behind it.
An interesting belief was
found among the villagers
who lived in the affected
areas. The victims of one
of the biggest landslide
disaster in Bangladesh were
considering their plight to be
an act of God. It is apparent
however, that such is not the
case.
16 Change Magazine
The lack of proper communication
and information dissemination
were found to be the main reasons
behind the disaster. Had people
prepared for such a calamity, less
damage would have been done. in the first place. The easiest
solution to this issue is to introduce
imperative signs and signals to
the rural people. These signs
and signals can be produced and
printed.
One of the major obstacles in
the communication process was
the proper understanding of the
message being transmitted before
the disaster. While rising death tolls
could have been easily avoided,
the people in the affected areas
couldn’t understand the message The advantage of a printed
message is that villagers can
be acquainted with the signs
easier than learning the literary
terms. Moreover, people tend
to understand the message
transmitted in the form of pictures
or images rather quickly than
verbal messages.
Governments can easily
collaborate with grassroots level
organizations and various active
social groups and NGOs to preach
the lessons among the villagers on
different levels. Proper education
regarding this matter is greatly
needed in order to get people to
act when disasters occur.
The second major obstacle
is the dissemination of the
message. Though one can’t
stop the occurrence of various
Another cause of the disaster
is apparently the heavy case of
deforestation in Bangladesh.
For a country with a subtropical
monsoon climate, it is likely to
encounter typhoons. Cutting
down trees is not helpful in
such situations as the country
is prone to landslides and other
related calamities. An easy
shot at reducing the number of
fatalities is to encourage people
in afforestation. In this context,
incentives for the villagers may
be initialized so they would be
motivated to plant more trees. If
village people can settle in with
the plantation of a large amount of
trees, the risk of any such disaster
would be reduced to a significant
scale.
If somehow, the application of the
three methods explained above
is ensured, a lot of lives may be
saved. After all, prevention is
always better than cure.
About the Author
Anika Nawar Oishi is a content writing intern at Diinsider. She is
currently pursuing her bachelor in Business Administration at North
South University in Bangladesh. She has wide range of interests in
international development, innovation, business solutions,
and human resources.
Change Magazine 17