Of dreams and unabated hope

The story of a landless mother receiving her dream home in Kawkhali

Shirin begum, holding out pictures of her missing daughter Rumi, and her other children outside the house provided to her as part of the scheme by the government.

Successive governments named the same scheme separately and took great pride in publicizing its achievements. The scheme deals with one of the most sought after commodities in Bangladesh- the right to a home and a piece of land for the landless peasants.
The scheme is simple and it starts with the local government in which elected representatives of each Upazila are involved. For a Chairman of an Upazila, it is a matter of prestige to be able to launch the scheme in which a landless peasant is handed over a purpose built housing unit, with small landing areas in the front and back of the structure.  In addition, the beneficiary gets around 4,000 square feet of agricultural land for his/her survival.
This is the story of a landless young mother qualifying for a unit of housing.
Shirin Begum, now 26, was born to a landless peasant’s family in the village of Borobiraljhuri, in Kowkhali Upazila, 225 Kilometers south of the capital. Her father died soon after her birth, leaving the family downhearted and in abject poverty. Her mother worked hard to procure three meals a day.
At the age of eight, Shirin was admitted to the local primary school where she continued till the age of 13. She was forced to drop out from the school. As a child, as Shirin frolicked around her shack with other children, she was noticed by a man named Sultan, aged about 40 and already married thrice. Sultan had no fixed employment. He dealt with anything from chickens to timber. He ran a small grocery shop in the village too. Sultan convinced Shirin’s mother with some cash.  A juvenile Shirin was handed over to Sultan as his fourth legitimate wife.
Within the following three years, Shirin gave birth to two girls and a boy. Just before the category 7 Cyclone Sidr hit the area in 2007, Sultan was diagnosed with lung cancer and died within a metter of days, leaving Shirin in total uncertainty with three children. The wrath of misery seemed to have sealed her fate. With her in-laws now refusing to support her, Shirin moved to her mother’s house with the three children.

The site of the government scheme near Joykul, on the picturesque banks of the river Sandha

It was no easy feat. The family sat down to decide how to survive. As a young widow, Shirin, faced another dilemma. Relentlessly courted by young men in her village, the young mother of three decided to fight for survival. “Eve-teasing on the streets made me sick every day, it was unbearable and I felt helpless.”
Just during these difficult times, the second project of the area to rehabilitate landless and destitute villagers was announced. “I immediately contacted our local representative and he had no hesitation in registering my name as a bona-fide applicant.” Amid all the miseries a flicker of hope showed up in Shirin’s life.
She made up her mind to travel to Dhaka and find employment at a garment factory in the capital. Her mother would look after the three children. “It was not difficult for me to locate a school friend who had suffered almost the same fate as mine and then I left for Dhaka a year ago and found employment there.”
But things did not quite move in Shirin’s way. While she worked in Dhaka, sharing a rented shack with her friends, Shirin’s mother found an employment opportunity for her eldest daughter, eight-year old Rumi. She would work as domestic help in a house in Chittagong.  The employer, a schoolteacher and a local guy who had migrated to Chittagong years ago, promised to look after Rumi.
“I was against the move to send my child to Chittagong but had little to say since I was busy working in the capital,” says Shirin in tears. “I have never seen my child again since.”
While Rumi worked in the house one day, according to the employer, she went out of his house never to return again. Rumi’s disappearance shattered Shirin. She went to Chittagong to look for her beloved child but there was no trace. The police could do little to trace Rumi and appeals in the local newspapers were futile. It seemed Rumi was lost forever from the life of this distressed mother. She still carried Rumi’s photo wherever she went and unknowingly looked at every child about the age of twelve. Rumi had been gone about four years ago.

Shirin Begum holds the pictures of Rumi, while her other children look on, outside their newly acquired home.

“I kept working in Dhaka till one day I received words from the local administration last year saying I am to get a ready-made home and a parcel of land from the government.”
“I was really delighted because none in our family possessed an inch of land and I instantly decided to pack up from Dhaka and head for Kawkhali.”
The project in Joykul, on the bank of the picturesque river Sandhya, about four kilometers from Kawkhali town, apparently brought relief to 90 landless families just like Shirin. Each concrete unit was built with two rooms and spaces in front and on the backyard. Several common deep Tubewells for fresh water were installed. Every household had a sanitary latrine. Initially all looked good.
But the isolation of the locality instantly became a bane for the poor residents.
“When I first entered here with my children, we were all so happy,” Shirin says standing with several other neighbors at her new abode. “But soon we all were awaken with the reality that there is no employment for any one of us here, there is no fuel wood in the vicinity for cooking, for selling labor one has to walk all the way to Kawkhali in uncertainty.” As she talks, her neighbors also join in to complain.
Parvin, a mother of five children, had returned from her Dhaka rented home to avail the lifetime offer. “We had migrated to Dhaka ten years ago just to escape from hunger but now as our dream of possessing a home and land is realized, we are thrown into a luxury without food to eat.”Parvin says. “In Dhaka life in a slum is unbearable but you have ready employment to earn cash from.”
Aminur Rashid Milton, Chairman of Kawkhali Union Parishad, and the initiator of the housing project, acknowledges the lack of employment opportunities in the project area.
He also says that many families want to leave their houses and go away in search of jobs. “This is an undeniable problem and I urge the government to create, on priority basis, job opportunities in the area so that they do not have to go back to Dhaka and further congestion in the capital,” Milton adds.
Meanwhile, Shirin has left behind her children with her mother and has come to Dhaka to join another garment factory in the Mirpur area. She left her dream home under lock and key. Many in the housing project might follow suit.
Story and photographs by Morshed Ali Khan

Short URL: https://reportsbd.com/?p=507

Posted by Reportsbd on Aug 9 2015. Filed under Home Slide, Special Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry