Meet the Bangladesh youth leading a green movement

Winning hearts and minds

The Youth Green Clubs that have sprung up across Parbatipur are part of an ambitious project that Tearfund partner LAMB is working on with the Government and local authorities.

An important first step has been to set up bin collections for the first time. In all nine ‘wards’ – or neighbourhoods – of Parbatipur, brightly coloured bins have appeared, inviting households to segregate their waste into organic, non-organic and plastics.

Waste collectors empty the bins regularly and transport their contents by cart to a waste-processing hub. All this infrastructure has been funded by the municipality: Tearfund and the authorities both contribute to workers’ salaries.

But that’s only part of the story. Because just as important is the job of engaging the community with the problem of waste and involving them in the solutions. And that’s where the Youth Green Clubs come in.

LAMB has trained hundreds of young people in waste management and helped set up Youth Green Clubs in each ward.

Under the campaign banner Shayamal Bangla Green – or SABUJ, meaning ‘green’ – these clubs have set themselves the goal of transforming attitudes to ‘waste’ in every single household in Parbatipur.

‘Earlier we had no idea how we manage our wastes,’ says one of Mim’s fellow group members. ‘After use, we dump them at random places. As a result, we ourselves are suffering from its negative impact. We don’t know much about it or, even if we know, we don’t care much.’

‘Domino effect’

Now, they really do care. As well as encouraging people to use the community bins, they’re also teaching their neighbourhoods how to compost organic waste, to feed their plants and even create organic vegetable gardens. 

And on big dates such as World Environment Day they set out in cavalcades of tricycles with loudspeakers and banners, or hold rallies urging people to ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’.

Mim describes a domino effect. ‘I have been influenced first and now I influence my family and elderly people, my neighbours, the influential people in the locality, and gradually my friends and students.’

LAMB is also opening up livelihood opportunities by providing sewing machines to women involved in local self-help groups, so they can recycle plastics into simple products such as tissue-packet covers and plastic folders.

The young people are also using their ingenuity to demonstrate ways to reuse and recycle plastics – creating everything from wall mats to plant pots.

Determined to see change

Not everyone is on board yet: Mim and her colleagues have been met with some resistance. But the Youth Green Clubs are in this for the long haul and have ideas about how to reach their more reluctant neighbours, including through faith leaders.

Importantly, there’s a strong sense of a community coming together to tackle a problem that affects everyone.

‘Those who are not changed, we will motivate them,’ says one member of the group. 'Earlier, people dumped waste into ponds, rivers, and the water got polluted, but now it is not happening'.

They’re aware of the ongoing UN talks aiming to develop a plastics treaty. They feel strongly that business needs to be encouraged to produce sustainable alternatives to plastics – and they want to see tighter laws on plastics. Their country was the first in the world to ban plastic bags, back in 2002, but the law has not been strictly enforced.

Mim and her fellow club members talk a lot about the future: the fertility of soil choked with non-biodegradable plastics and the impact on their ability to grow enough food. But they’re optimistic too that things can change in Parbatipur.

‘I want a beautiful and clean environment and good natural resources for future generations,’ says Mim.

‘Cleanliness is a part of faith. Just as God sends his angels to bring good things for human beings, this project came to us to inspire us to do good things. It’s a blessing from God.’