story by: Dave king

The long-standing relationship between the Rotary Club of Wrexham Erddig and Bangladesh began when club member Dr Graham Arthurs took on the role of external examiner for the Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1999.

Following that first visit, he returned a year later to begin discussions to support the first training programme for intensive care nurses in the country.

Active support for the project was provided by the Rotary Club Metropolitan in Dhaka with computers for the nurses and certificates for completing the course. This was supported with a Foundation grant from District 1180 and today the nurse training programme is well-established in a new purpose-built intensive care unit.

One of the doctors involved in the project was supporting students in Dhaka and the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The Hill Tracts, to the east of Chittagong, feature Chackma and Marma people which was the focus of a 20-year war which ended in 1997.

The years of strife had left their mark with a lack of funds for education which prompted Chris Jones and Malcolm James from Wrexham Erddig Rotary to support students through a charity, Children in Bangladesh. This began a project to develop education at a secondary school in Rangamati which serves a wide area in the Hill Tracts.

Working with Rotarian Ahmed Farooque from the Rotary Club of Kawran Bazar in Dhaka, they secured a second Foundation grant from District 1180 to turn the school around. The Chakma people of the region gave wholehearted support to the rejuvenation, which also included supporting a junior school with facilities provided to support local women weaving traditional cloth.

The programme was extended to a poverty-stricken northern region of Dhaka peopled by descendants of Indians who had been brought in during the Raj as unpaid labour.Landless, they lacked funds for development, so support was found for schools, as well as for nursing and college students.

The effects of the pandemic were apparent in a country with no provision for social security, unemployment or free health care. The drop in income for families meant that education inevitably suffered with pressure to cover students’ tuition fees as colleges withheld certificates until fees were paid, resulting in many student nurses not being able to get a job.

There was further support in the northern district with a hostel set up to house girls who had nowhere to live while they finished their training.

A Rotary matching grant was secured to start a women’s health programme to screen for breast cancer, initially by visiting Muslim women in their own homes.

During the pandemic, two junior schools were built in villages in the Hill Tracts outside Bandarban. Each school has four classrooms, taking younger children in the morning and older children in the afternoon. The schools have been approved and registered with the government who will take them over after five years.

In a relationship extending over so many years there have inevitably been lessons to learn. Graham Arthurs feels he was in a fortunate position in having working links with Bangladesh which he could build on.

He said he would strongly advise anyone contemplating a project in any country to visit more than once and become familiar with the local opportunities and limitations. The success of the Bangladesh projects can be traced to the efforts made between Rotarians and partners to know people who have the welfare of the locals at heart.