About Bangladesh – Tea for 2

Do you know Bangladesh?

Beautiful land, kind people & hard working spirit.

Stopping the exit of people from their villages

Almost half of the Bangladeshi population (45%) are farmers. Farming makes up 18% of the nation’s GDP. Despite widespread farming in Bangladesh, the biggest exports in the country come from the garment industry. The garment industry is so large due to the low paying, dangerous working conditions. The falsehood of good paying jobs in the larger cities lures people from rural communities away from land and family.

Poverty and climate challenges

30% of the Bangladesh population live below the poverty line. Bangladesh is one of the most disaster prone areas in the world. Cyclones and floods have killed thousands and impeded economic growth. Bangladesh has an opportunity to be a global leader in farming. The alluvial soils deposited by the rivers make Bangladesh's soils some of the most fertile delta soils in the world. Due to its low-lying elevation, the ground in Bangladesh has never frozen, which allows for farming year-round.

Hard challenges we need
your support to overcome.

million workforce undereducated

Labor forces ranging age 15 and above, approximately 40% have no formal education. Existing vocational programs target mostly men and students who enter training between grades 9-12. Numerous underprivileged people do not make to grade 8. Many of the programs are not developed enough for present day market demands.

Citation: Newaz, Mohammad. (2013). Vocational education and training in Bangladesh: Why it is not working?. International Journal of Research Studies in Education. 2. 29-40. 10.5861/ijrse.2013.261.

thousand community clinic services

In Bangladesh, since 2009, establishment of 14,000 community clinics (CCs) for every 6,000 population across the country. While Bangladesh has notable achievement in improving the health of the population, some health indicators still remain poor. One of the foremost factors contributing to this situation is the under-utilization of community clinic services (CCS). Reasons for under-utilization of CCS have been attributed to distance of the facility from home, lack of awareness on the value of services, perceived poor quality of care, cultural and social belief systems, discrimination against those of low socio-economic status, and perceived high access costs.

Citation: Yaya S, Bishwajit G, Ekholuenetale M, Shah V (2017) Awareness and utilization of community clinic services among women in rural areas in Bangladesh: A cross-sectional study. PLoS ONE 12(10): e0187303. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0187303

million live on $1.90USD per day

An estimated 35 percent of the population in rural areas lives below the poverty line. They suffer from persistent food insecurity, own no land and assets, are often uneducated, and may also suffer serious illnesses or disabilities. Another 29 percent of the rural population is considered moderately poor. Though they may own a small plot of land and some livestock and generally have enough to eat, their diets lack nutritional value. As a result of health problems or natural disasters, they are at risk of sliding deeper into poverty.

Citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Bangladesh

million in aging population

As of 2017, 65 years and over: 6.23% of the entire population (male 4,666,033/female 5,161,744) (2017 est.). Furthermore, many of the aged population, particularly women, return to the rural areas. The growth of the elderly population in Bangladesh from 1991 to 2050 is indicated in statistics showing a steady rise, from 5 per cent in 1991 to 7% in 2011, 9% in 2015, and a projected 25% by 2050 (BBS, 2015; WHO, 2015). It is expected that the proportion of elderly people will outnumber the proportion of young people in the last quarter of the twenty-first century, while the elderly to young person ratio will be equal by 2050 (Uddin et al., 2013). As young adults seek work farther away and abroad, no one is left to care of the elderly population, even in a family connected society.

Citation: Abed, F.H. (2013) ‘Bangladesh’s Health Revolution’, The Lancet, 382(9910): 2048–9.