Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Tuesday November 23rd 7.30pm
Eat your heart out John Simpson, this is David Wilson reporting from Dhaka.
Tuesday 23rd November 7pm
The girl in the blue dress is Charna. She lives in a slum on the edge of Dhaka.
She lives with her parents and four brothers and sisters in a corrugated iron "house" about the size of a typical lounge. They have no running water and no loo, they have electricity for about 8 hours a day. They have one double bed in the house, some of them sleep in it and the others sleep on the floor under it.
Her dad works in a small kiosk/shop and, on a good day, he can bring home up to 200 Taka (1 Taka = 1 pence). All of the money he earns goes on food for the family. Charna and her family eat rice with lentils or beans twice a day every day. Usually she is able have some chicken once a week to go with the rice and lentils. Her mum normally gives her a few Taka each day to buy a sweet or a biscuit. In the picture, she is eating a yoghurt which she bought from a Grameen Danone sales lady for 8 Taka (she loves them and has one most weeks).
She goes to school for 2 hours each day where she is learning to read, to add up and also to write a little. The rest of the time, she looks after her little brothers and sisters or plays games in the street with other children. She never leaves the slum as there is nowhere for her to go and she cannot afford to buy anything.
She lives with her parents and four brothers and sisters in a corrugated iron "house" about the size of a typical lounge. They have no running water and no loo, they have electricity for about 8 hours a day. They have one double bed in the house, some of them sleep in it and the others sleep on the floor under it.
Her dad works in a small kiosk/shop and, on a good day, he can bring home up to 200 Taka (1 Taka = 1 pence). All of the money he earns goes on food for the family. Charna and her family eat rice with lentils or beans twice a day every day. Usually she is able have some chicken once a week to go with the rice and lentils. Her mum normally gives her a few Taka each day to buy a sweet or a biscuit. In the picture, she is eating a yoghurt which she bought from a Grameen Danone sales lady for 8 Taka (she loves them and has one most weeks).
She goes to school for 2 hours each day where she is learning to read, to add up and also to write a little. The rest of the time, she looks after her little brothers and sisters or plays games in the street with other children. She never leaves the slum as there is nowhere for her to go and she cannot afford to buy anything.
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Sunday 21st November 11am
I have been invited to visit Grameen Danone in Bangladesh as part of a Danone training program I am on.
The aim of the Grameen Danone business is to reduce malnutrition and poverty in Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world. It is a partnership between Grameen Bank and Danone. A small loan is made to a farmer to buy a cow. He/she then sells the milk to Grameen Danone to repay the loan and earn a living. Grameen Danone employs people in a small factory to make the milk into a nutrient-enriched yoghurt and then distributes the yoghurts to over 500 ladies, each in their small community. These ladies then sell the yoghurts and earn a living for themselves. Each yoghurt sells for 6 taka, equivalent to about 5p. Not much - but then the majority of the population here subsist on less than one pound a day...
You can find out loads more on the website of Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in creating the Grameen Bank ("bank of the poor") and who set up this partnership with Danone:
http://www.muhammadyunus.org/images/stories/in_the_media/GDFL_BP_210510.pdf
or on Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grameen_Danone
There are 7 of us in all on the training program, each from Danone Baby and Medical businesses around the world: China, Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy and Singapore. Our project for the next 6 days is to work out how Grameen Danone might extend its approach into the slums of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. So far most of the work has been only with the rural poor; the urban poverty in the big cities can be even greater and no-one has yet been able to work out how to help the people in the slums of the capital using this approach.
The aim of the Grameen Danone business is to reduce malnutrition and poverty in Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world. It is a partnership between Grameen Bank and Danone. A small loan is made to a farmer to buy a cow. He/she then sells the milk to Grameen Danone to repay the loan and earn a living. Grameen Danone employs people in a small factory to make the milk into a nutrient-enriched yoghurt and then distributes the yoghurts to over 500 ladies, each in their small community. These ladies then sell the yoghurts and earn a living for themselves. Each yoghurt sells for 6 taka, equivalent to about 5p. Not much - but then the majority of the population here subsist on less than one pound a day...
You can find out loads more on the website of Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in creating the Grameen Bank ("bank of the poor") and who set up this partnership with Danone:
http://www.muhammadyunus.org/images/stories/in_the_media/GDFL_BP_210510.pdf
or on Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grameen_Danone
There are 7 of us in all on the training program, each from Danone Baby and Medical businesses around the world: China, Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy and Singapore. Our project for the next 6 days is to work out how Grameen Danone might extend its approach into the slums of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. So far most of the work has been only with the rural poor; the urban poverty in the big cities can be even greater and no-one has yet been able to work out how to help the people in the slums of the capital using this approach.
Friday, 19 November 2010
Friday 19th November 9pm
Passport? Visa? Tickets? Travellers cheques? Credit card? Immunisations? Deet? Immodium(!)? Yup, all sorted (famous last words).
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