Coastal communities hope to gain protection and prosperity from mangrove plantations A deer among the breathing roots of the Sundarban, the world's largest mangrove. ©SYED WASAMA DOJA by NAUSHAD ALI HUSEIN October 28, 2020 Ibrahim Hossain’s home has been flooded with...
Climate Adaptation
Swept Away
A whole village disappears under water, yet the community continues its schooling. by NAUSHAD ALI HUSEINAugust 27, 2020 Mamotaz Begum’s village is at the bottom of the river. Where there were once homes of some 350 families, among lush corn and paddy fields, vegetable...
The Key to Antifragility
The Principle behind Friendship’s Response to Emergencies Radi Shafiq, Senior Manager, Friendship In his 2012 book entitled “Antifragile”, the mathematical statistician Professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb introduces the world to the term “Antifragility”, which he defines...
No Rest for the Vulnerable
by Runa Khan, Founder and Executive Director, Friendship Tackling the impact of Covid-19 on a country of 170 million people and frequent natural disasters, we felt that the year 2020 was not like any other in our lifetimes. We shared our struggle to contain the spread...
Crisis Fatigue
by Runa Khan, Founder and Executive Director, Friendship The blessing that gives Bangladesh its natural abundance also leaves it vulnerable to nature’s more destructive forces. Bangladesh is formed at the mouth of two of the largest rivers of the world: the...
Guardians of the embankment
by Naushad Ali HuseinJune 10, 2020 On May 20th Super-cyclone Amphan began heading towards the shore of Padmapukur, a cluster of coastal villages in Bangladesh. As the majority of its villagers took shelter, Friendship's Uttam Kumar lead 30 young volunteers to repair...
Build for the crises to come
While we work to protect our communities and our countries against Covid-19, we need to also prepare them to deal with the climate crisis, writes Runa Khan. It feels as though nature has left humankind reeling, our sense of vulnerability siphoned collectively towards...
COVID-19 and Climate Change
by Saleemul Huq, Climate Advisor for Friendship The COVID-19 virus pandemic is still making its way around the world and it will be some time before it is over. Nevertheless, we can draw from it some lessons on how to deal with Climate Change. The problems we are...
Phulmoti: Guardian of the Seeds
In the rural regions of Bangladesh, such as the hard-to-reach chars in the north of the country, women are seen as the guardians of seeds. Women play the primary role in the preservation of seeds from the time they are harvested and stored until they are planted...
A Brave New World
by RUNA KHAN, back from Davos Davos, the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, is a gathering of the cream of market leaders who are driving the change in our world today. Over 3,000 leaders in different fields and 53 heads of state, attended its 50th iteration...
Climate Recap
By Benjamin George Coles In May, Cyclone Fani displaced around 3.5 million people in Bangladesh and India. Even before that, around 10 million in Bangladesh had been evacuated due to climate emergencies in recent decades. Friendship works in places that are among the...
Building Climate Resilience—a photo essay
Friendship’s climate crisis management programs build resilience by encouraging and spreading locally learned adaptation techniques, but also by introducing knowledge and expertise into communities and organising them to prepare for increasingly unpredictable climate...