Health

There are three components to ECDO’s health program, addressing general health issues, HIV and AIDS, and Water and Sanitation.

General health

ECDO arranges free medical camps in remote indigenous areas to provide essential health service facilities. These camps also provide medical supplies.

ECDO runs a project entitled: “Development Initiatives for the Group of Northeastern Indigenous Talents of Youth (DIGNITY)” with support from Action Aid Bangladesh. Under this project ECDO is producing a health awareness program focussing on Female and Youth health related issues. ECDO has delivered three workshops on reproductive health, to 152 women, and ECDO is providing traditional birth attendance training with the aim of reducing the mortality rate of mother and infant during childbirth in the indigenous community. ECDO also publishes advocacy and awareness posters and leaflets in different indigenous languages, and ECDO provides basic hygiene awareness activities for the school-going indigenous children.

HIV/AIDS

ECDO began its HIV/AIDS awareness program in 2004. There is a high rate of migration between Bangladesh and India in Sylhet District, and consequently there is a disproportionately high risk of HIV infection. No other organization works on HIV/AIDS issues for indigenous communities in this region. The main activities ECDO is involved in are to organize female group discussions among different indigenous communities and the development of posters and leaflets to disseminate information about methods of HIV protection. This is a continuous process of our organization.

Water and Sanitation

In 2006 ECDO launched a Rainwater Harvesting Plant (RWHP) project in Jaintapur and Sylhet Sadar Upazilla, among the hilly and plain land indigenous community areas, where people have long suffered from a lack of pure drinking water. The project was funded through the generosity of Mr John Grandinetti, and pictures of the RWHPs are available at our Flickr Web Gallery.

The project began in February, and the first phase was completed by June 2006. Under this project, ECDO established five RWHPs, and 500 beneficiaries were aided, representing 100 families. The RWHPs ranged from a minimum capacity of 50,000 litres and maximum capacity of 125,000 litres. ECDO formed five RWHP management and operation committees in the project area. They were provided with one day of training on how to maintain and run the systems of the RWHP, so the communities will be self-sufficient in the future.

ECDO is very happy that Mr Grandinetti has agreed to continue funding the RWHP project, to enable ECDO to deliver five more RWHPs benefitting 100 families in Dharmapasha Upazilla, under Sunamgonj District, where the rate of arsenic contamination is very high (65%). Arsenic contamination is a vast problem across the region, and ECDO hopes to expand this project in to other villages as soon as possible. If you would like to learn more about the RWHP project, please contact ECDO.

The government declared that every family will have access to water and sanitation by December 2010 and in this spirit the government of Bangladesh, DANIDA and NGO Forum came together to materialize this goal. In this effort, ECDO has been in collaboration with NGO Forum to improve water and sanitation system in the Sylhet region since 2007. The aim of this project is to improve the quality of life of people by introducing sustained hygiene practices and improve water supply and sanitation facilities to increase the access of the poor especially disadvantaged indigenous peoples.

ECDO is implementing this project in only one Union Parishad (UP) in the Northeastern region of Bangladesh. ECDO formed Ward Water and Sanitation (WatSan) committee in order to disseminate a lot of information on water and sanitation issue. ECDO organizes informal training to the members of these committees, who are then charged with the responsibility of sharing their knowledge with their community members.

The activities carried out by ECDO for this project;

ECDO has rallied up participants in the region to take part in ensuring safe water and sanitation. The organization has secured the help from various leaders, local engineers, local government officials, print and electronic media and the community members in this endeavor. In the child to child approach, the children are approached in the playground setting and they are taught on how to uphold good hygiene and the need to play in clean and safe manner. ECDO also showed its solidarity of the Celebration of Sanitation Month organized by NGO forum.