Villager receiving emergency aid delivered by Christian Aid partner Friends in Village Development Bangladesh, which works in in Sylhet district, northeastern Bangladesh. photo: FIVDB
'If FIVDB did not provide seeds for us, we wouldn’t have been able to eat as we couldn’t afford the high prices in the market.'

Events were sudden. Large volumes of water swept down with great force from areas bordering India - the result of heavy rains and flooded rivers. Homes, schools and crops were swept away.

The home of Minara Begum and her daughter Shuva was completely engulfed by water for a week. The family took shelter with Shuva’s grandmother in a nearby town.

As the floods subsided, the family returned home and Shuva helped her mother clean the mud and dirt out of their house.

Shuva’s school – run by Christian Aid partner, Friends in Village Development Bangladesh (FIVDB) – was also under water.

In all, 80 out of 108 FIVDB schools were damaged by floods. As well as working to reopen these schools, FIVDB also began emergency relief work.

Shuva – like many other children in the region – joined her teachers in mopping up classrooms and getting the school back to normal.

When the children went back to school many of them had diarrhoea from drinking unclean water and some were under nourished as the floods had led to food shortages.

FIVDB was able to provide them with rehydration salts. It also cleaned local wells and planted vegetables in the school grounds to supplement the children’s diets.

With crops destroyed and price of seeds and vegetables rising, FIVDB began distributing emergency seeds to families in the region.

Rani Begum’s family lost all their crops in the floods and she became very anxious that they would soon run out of food.

But FIVDB provided her family with seeds and now they are growing a variety of vegetables.

As Rani says, ‘If FIVDB did not provide seeds for us, we wouldn’t have been able to eat as we couldn’t afford the high prices in the market.’

Now Rani and her family have food and Shuva and her classmates are back at school but there is still more to be done. FIVDB has now returned to its priority work – improving literacy levels in adults and children which, in the long-term, will help alleviate poverty.