For Climate Action
Danni Hu
Climate Refugees
in Bangladesh
Defining the Problem: Sea Level Rising in Bangladesh
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As the climate warms and sea levels rise, Bangladesh is being inundated. People lost their farms, their jobs, their homes. They are forced to start moving. Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated regions on earth, with a total population of 164 million, more than the vast size of Russia. Sea levels are expected to rise by several meters by 2100. This means that between 10 and 30 million people in southern Bangladesh will be forced to relocate, forcing large numbers of people to move as climate refugees.
Where is Bangladesh?
Bangladesh borders Myanmar in the southeast, India in the east, west and north, and the bay of Bengal in the south. Bangladesh is home to about 10% of the country’s rivers and lakes. Bangladesh is a developing country with a per capita income of $641. There are many small islands and sandbars along the coast.
Climate Migration
Every day, about 2,000 new people settle in Dhaka. There is a driving force accelerating the concentration of people in Dhaka: climate change on earth, which is making life unsustainable in Bangladesh, where the flat terrain is threatened by rivers. In the coming decades, millions or more “climate refugees” around the world will begin similar journeys. The cruel irony is that many people in cities will be even less able to cope with climate change.
Hypothesis
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In the short term, climate change will lead to all kinds of natural disasters such as storm surges and floods. In the long run, climate change will lead to sea level rise. These changes are reducing farmland and salinizing soil. Agriculture is suffering and farmers are losing their jobs.
When the living ground is flooded, people are forced to start moving, some to inland capitals, some to other countries like India. With more and more people moving to the capital, it results in a great increase in population density. Moreover, these migrant farmers are generally poorly educated and do not have many suitable jobs or they can only do some manual labor and live in poverty. They also don’t have money or ability to emigrate.
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Education is key to helping these refugees survive and adapt to climate change. Only by improving education can these refugees be able to improve their living standards and face the plight of climate change together with their country. Now some NGOs are building floating schools to improve local educational resources.
Hypothesis: Dynamic System Model
Proposing a Solution:
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Bangladesh is trying to adapt to these environmental crises. Nongovernmental organizations, for example, have built floating schools that can operate during the rainy season. It is no exaggeration to say that the present in Bangladesh is the future of the world. Understanding Bangladesh’s plight is both a way to help these climate refugees and a way to remind ourselves that global warming is something we all need to face together.
Floating School
Educators in Bangladesh have a problem. Not only do they face many of the same challenges as teachers in other resource-poor countries, tight funding, textbooks, crowded classrooms, they also have to worry about floods. Flooding is so common in Bangladesh that students are often unable to get into classrooms. 23 water schools in this part of Bangladesh that are open year-round and run by local nonprofit Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha. Every morning the ship goes down the river to pick up the students.
Floating School for Girls
The mobility of these schools has another benefit in rural Bangladesh. In rural areas, parents are most concerned about the safety of girls and will not let them go to school if they have to walk a long way. But here, education is right on their doorstep, so they don’t care about safety, nor does the family of third-grader Nila. Her mother said Nila might not have been in school at all had it not been for the floating school.