Stories from the front line of climate change in Bangladesh event held

Ansar Ahmed Ullah
Contributing Editor,Shottobani

London: The Kindness of People to Face the Climate Crisis in Bangladesh Together event by Peter Musgrave in collaboration with the Swadhinata Trust was held on Tuesday, 4 November, Queen Mary University of London, ArtsOne, Bloc, Mile End Road.

The event started with an exhibition in the foyer of Arts One, then a talk at Bloc cinema by Peter Musgarve, combining slide show, short films, music and poetry recitation.

The exhibition showed photographs documenting the climate crisis in Bangladesh. They were taken over many years, in many places, by many people. It showed different dimensions of the difficult environmental issues that people are facing. These include floods, flash floods, cyclones and droughts. The exhibition also highlighted the kindness, the theme of this year’s A Season of Bangla Drama, behind the support on offer. Local and international networks work together to improve people’s living conditions. This is particularly true of NGOs and their partners. It shows kindness towards the land, the environment and nature. The pictures also showed some of the ingenious ways people are adapting to a changing situation.

Kazi Ruksana Begum, Tower Hamlets Arts Officer, opened the event with Anisha Chandrashekar from the Swadhinata Trust, introducing Peter Musgarve. Peter Musgrave has been interested in environmental issues since the 1990s and worked with NGOs in Bangladesh for 9 years. In his talk, he highlighted the localised dangers of climate change. He shone a light on the hard work of those people battling its effects. The music was performed by Dr Shyamal Chowdhury, Sunita Chowdhury, Mitali Bonowary and Rumy Haque. Poetry was recited by Rumy Haque and Sunita Chowdhury. Technical support was provided by Sadeq Ahmed Chowdhury.