Life & work in Dhaka

My NGO received a small grant from the Elton John Aids Foundation via VSOB last year to set up and run an HIV/AIDS Helpline, currently the only one in operation in Bangladesh. An exposure visit to West Bengal formed part of the obligation to accepting that grant.  It should have taken place last year but fell through, due to the Mumbai terror attack, which triggered the closure of the Indian border on the eve of departure. So it fell to me to reorganise this visit to ensure we fulfilled the conditions of the grant. The key objective was to meet with similar Indian HIV/AIDS NGO’s based in Calcutta, also running a Helpline, with the purpose of learning ways of consolidating and expanding, but also efficient operation and service delivery.

The first thing that struck me was how responsive the Indian organisations were, how keen to meet with us.  They confirmed, filling up our four day timetable in no time.  In fact we could have easily stayed a further four days as there were many more who we simply couldn’t accommodate and incorporate into our schedule. So with our visit planned and our objectives set, it only remained for us to travel to Zia International airport to catch our flight to Calcutta,

Such heavy precautions in place to manage the swine flu epidemic surprised me on arrival at Chandra Bose Airport.  Not simply form filling, asking all the obvious questions, ticking all the usual boxes, but men in white coats and face masks taking the passenger’s pulse. Scary! We muddled our way through the white tape and hired one of the bright yellow taxi cabs, gaining our first glimpse of India as we drove through the city streets in search of our hotel in the heart of Calcutta.

We launched our programme early the following morning, spending an entire day with the Calcutta Samaritans, at their Aurnoday Midway Home, which operates a Pavement Club, a Primary Health Care unit, an HIV/AIDS programme, a Home for children at risk and support for the city’s Rickshaw Pullers. With such a well established NGO we planned to spend the morning meeting with their HIV/AIDS Programme Manager and Helpline Counsellors, the afternoon visiting their Home for orphan slum children and their HIV/AIDS Drop in Centre, and the evening on a field trip to spend time with some of the city’s sex worker population.   

Learning from our friends at the Drop In Centre

After a full day in consultation with an assortment of fascinating and highly capable individuals, we made our way as darkness fell, to the park opposite the Victoria Memorial, a beautiful, white monumental building.  Victoria Park itself covers a vast wide open space, where groups of young people, families, food hawkers all mingle…and collide with the sex industry, who’s workers operate spread out all over this busy area.  The Samaritans have allocated a central focal point where one appointed sex worker spends a minimum of two hours a day on behalf of the programme.  Handing out free condoms, both male and female, she offers advice to all who enquire, related to sexual health in general and HIV/AIDS in particular.    

We sat with her, cross legged on the grass, and within moments I could see them starting to trail over, converging on us from every direction, curious to see who had come to visit their ’patch’. They greeted us on arrival, sitting or squatting until we had formed a large circle.  Some were shy, but others came up to greet me personally.  One, with startlingly good English, held me in fascinating conversation for many minutes, talking of her difficult and unhappy home life, dominated by her mother-in-law.  Unusually tall, she stood erect and proud, her hair loose and flowing, and despite several missing teeth and advancing age, she still struck me as a fairly magnificent woman. 

From time to time one of them would simply drift away, returning to sit back with us again ten minutes or so later.  I never could work out how they knew their clients were waiting, but somehow they did. Overall I found the exchange fascinating, and came away really appreciating how flying, or mobile sex-workers operate, their key areas of risk, and the many challenges present in their daily lives.  

UN International Drugs Support Vehicle

The following afternoon our second field trip was scheduled, an appointment to visit a short term shelter home in North Calcutta to meet ’The Dancing Boys’, adolescent and young gender variant males, with a feminine demeanor.  A high risk underground group, this vulnerable population, some identified as young as 12 years, can be hard to reach, and regularly fall into prostitution from an early age.

As a marginalised group they are typically victims of social stigma and gross human rights violations, and as a result face serious barriers to joining mainstream occupations.  As an alternative they join the troop as a ‘Luanda Dancer’, and migrate to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to dance in the marriage rituals.  Their livelihood as Hijra or folk entertainers put them at grave risk of sexual harassment, abuse, assault and trafficking, which on occasions has resulted in death.  

The lauder naach is an integral part of the marriage ceremony, and an age-old popular tradition in northern India, where a wedding is an elaborate affair comprising of music, food, drink and dancing, but here effeminate boys dance in the marriage procession and ceremonies dressed in women’s clothing. This custom evolved from poor families, who could not afford the more expensive women dancers, but gradually the practice  became not only popular but an intrinsic part of the ceremony itself.

Usually from lower middle class poor families, the dancers, typically between 15 to 25 years old, travel from West Bengal, Nepal, and Bangladesh for the peak marriage season, April to June in the summer and December to February in the winter. The groom’s family normally hires the dancers, who, along with the baraat (groom’s entourage) journey to the bride’s family home, where the laggan (marriage) ceremony takes place, usually commencing late in the evening. Once the dancing begins, it continues, in most cases non-stop through to dawn and as the celebration progresses, their vulnerability to both physical and sexual assault increases.

The attraction of Launda dancing is mainly the income, a performer could earn Rs.6000/ to Rs.12OOO on a three month contract, usually with the addition of free food and lodging, but the dancers can also be paid in cash at the end of each session.  However they often get less than their contractual agreement, and sometimes nothing at all.  But it is the freedom to express their womanly instincts away from the jibes of relatives and neighbors that provides the main source of satisfaction.  So in spite of the risks involved, very few actually want to quit this seasonal profession, and they have a serious lack of alternative options.

This relatively small network impressed me greatly.  They were so active, protecting their rights and attempting to gain control over their lives. I admired their photographs and short mobile-phone video clips that they openly shared with me.  As I watched the dancing ceremony, peering closely at them on the tiny screens, it was clear they were immensely proud.

Throughout this exposure visit we met with and learnt from enthusiastic, dedicated and informed NGO staff, doing amazing work under, in most cases incredibly difficult circumstances. They are true professionals with many great achievements, which have changed the lives of an immense number of marginalised and stigmatised groups within Indian society for the better. Without them an awfully large number of people would be in a much more precarious position. I thank them one and all…long may they and their valuable work continue.

A percentage of my time in Bangladesh will be spent working with the VSO Programme Office, and a couple of weeks ago the Country Director invited me to become involved formulating a project to engage with the corporate sector, as this was the background of my former career. 

After establishing contact with HSBC Bank, both the Country Director and myself, accompanied by the Programme Manager in charge of  Livelihoods, one of the three strategic programme areas operating withing VSO Bangladesh, visited to fact find and establish what relevant links we could.  We came away with the plan of producing a concept paper to submit at their July Board Meeting with the proposal of partnering with them. It was the production of the paper itself that first offered me a glimpse into the specific challenges of life in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a region in south-eastern Bangladesh close to the Burmese border. 

In 1984 the CHT was divided into three separate districts:  Khagrachari, Rangamati and Banderban, which constitutes 10% of the total land area of Bangladesh.  The population is roughly 2 million, of which approximately half are tribal and the remainder from different communities.  The indigenous peoples are mainly followers of Theravada Buddhism, and collectively known as the Jumma, which include the Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Tenchungya, Chak, Mru, Murung, Bawm, Lushai, Khyang and Khumi. Following years of unrest, an agreement was formed between the Government of Bangladesh and the tribal leaders which granted a limited level of autonomy to the elected council of the three hill districts, but there remains a heavy military presence to this day.

The modern conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts began when the political representatives of the native peoples protested against the government policy of recognising only the Bengali culture and language and designating all citizens of Bangladesh as Bengalis. In talks with a Hill Tracts delegation led by the Chakma politician Manabendra Narayan Larma, the country’s founding leader Sheikh Mujubur Rahmnan insisted that the ethnic groups of the Hill Tracts adopt the Bengali identity, and is reported to have threatened to settle Bengalis in the Hill Tracts to reduce the native peoples into a minority.

In the CHT, the indigenous peoples are commonly known as Jummas for their common practice of swidden cultivation (crop rotation agriculture) locally known as jum. An environmental study has recommended changing this practice, and as controversial as that sounds the pressure is on.  Support is urgently required to skill some community leaders with the basic financial know how to enable funding to be managed to support and facilitate some complimentary agricultural practice and transitioning livelihoods. This we intend to facilitate through sharing the skills of the talented employees of HSBC through carefully selected short term volunteering interventions.   

I have my fingers crossed that this proposal will be considered a worthy one when all applicants are reviewed at the HSBC Board meeting. From our side we don’t require money, simply the release of some of their human resource.  So much talent is already contained within Bangladesh.  Sharing skills and changing lives is the VSO strapline, but that doesn’t always have to constitute International exchange.

The Chittagong Hills

…things were moving on…very slowly.  I knew the routine by now, and even a few of the faces, this being my third visit.  My first was to ensure I was fully aware of all the required paperwork necessary to submit my visa application,  which was closely followed by the second, when I was told I did not in fact have all the required paperwork to submit my visa application, dispite being informed some 24 hours previously what was necessary. So, third time lucky. 

It sounded as if I might need some luck as I sat listening to the raised voices of the Indian consular staff in the adjoining room, processing foreign visa applications. Overall the whole experience felt pretty surreal, the passionate shouting, the bright blue plastic chairs, the lime green walls, and in amongst it the most beautifully carved wooden door I had set eyes on for ages.  Somehow it began to resemble pupils waiting to be called into the Head Master’s study for some minor playground misdemeanor. Tension was tangible on the faces of those waiting, eyes widening as voices raised another decibel or two. 

Personally I couldn’t help but find it amusing. Not that this was going to help me in any way when my number was called.  Thirteen?  Yes, that unfortunately was me. I couldn’t believe it when, as required, I had scribbled my name and passport number on the security guard’s list on arrival. In I ventured, the smile almost wiped off my lips, but perhaps lingering slightly as I witnessed the fraught but comical interrogation of a poor man attempting to travel to Madras for medical purposes.  They were having none of it.  He was sent packing to produce yet another letter he knew nothing about from his surgeon, before they would even consider looking at his application papers.

They went easy on me. I had, after all produced everything previously demanded. My passport and three thousand taka, the equivalent of approximately thirty pounds, were handed over, and I am destined to return in four days time to collect the permission required to fly to Calcutta.  

Myself and three of my colleagues are traveling there on an exposure visit. Our HIV Helpline has been in operation for a year now and we have arranged to meet with a number of similar Indian NGOs, to learn how we can better integrate this service and further develop its capacity, cranking up our efficiency to our end user, as well as improving donor value for money. With such an eclectic mix of cooperating organisations, I believe I’ll also appreciate much more about the lives and challenges of those people living with, and at high risk from HIV/AIDS in the Indian sub-continent today.

FOUR DAYS LATER:-  Yippee…have my visa in my hand, in and out this time in under 20 minutes!  Calcutta here I come…watch this space!