Supporting solar PV in Bangladesh
Tuesday, January 24, 2017 at 11:35AM St John's Church in Ashton Hayes is raising money for the Lamb Hospital in Bangladesh that is supported by Tearfund. Our village has a long standing connection with Bangladesh, having hosted a special climate change delegation brough to the village by Oxfam around 9 years ago. At that time we agreed to provide support for PV arrays that will power solar lighting to help children and others study after dark. The Community Energy Company is now in a position to provide £250 of funds towards this excellent cause.
Here is our report from 2008:
6th March 2008: We had an extremely interesting visit today from Oxfam who brought along two people, Sahena Begum and Farid Hasan Ahmed, from Bangladesh. They wanted to know what we are doing as a village to help stem climate change but the most interesting part of the visit occurred at the Primary School where they told the 5-7 year olds about life in flood stricken villages where they live. The children were enthralled and asked some very insightful questions (through an interpreter for Sahena - Fariyah Rahman), for almost an hour. They were amazed to hear that Sahena and fellow villagers had no electricity, gas or lighting and had their houses completely destroyed by freak floods every three years or so. Sahana, who prior to this trip had never been on a bus, plane or train, told us that things were getting worse each year and that Oxfam was helping them to build refuges on higher ground and also providing some basic facilities. But she would dearly love a solar panel to power lights to enable children to study in the evening. Ashton Hayes schoolchildren probably went home tonight wondering how our lifestyles and living conditions can be so different
We are now hoping to keep in touch with the village via the GCN project and the school and see how we might work together to help them and spread the word about the impact climate change is having on the poorest people in the world. For information on the Oxfam project contact cworrall@oxfam.org.uk.