I spent a couple of hours this lunchtime with a lively group of Bengali youngsters from Tower Hamlets in Chrisp Street Market in my constituency of Poplar & Limehouse, collecting signatures for a petition that will be delivered to Gordon Brown, urging that more is done to ensure that people in developing countries have access to clean water. The message ‘Safe water can save a child’s life’ went down well with most passers-by — though a certain percenatge always run shy of anyone collecting signatures for anything. The action (which was mirrored by a similar operation by other young people in Whitechapel, in the neighbouring seat of Bethnal Green & Bow) was organised by Drop4Life, a ‘Beyond Boundaries’ project organised by BRAC UK, the UK arm of an organisation that was originally set up in Bangladesh in 1972 by Fazle Hasan Abed, to help the country overcome the devastation and trauma of the Bangldesh Liberation War. Subsequently, BRAC evolved into what organsiers describe as a self-financed paradigm in sustainable human development and claims to be the largest NGO in the world, employing over 100,000 people, 72 per cent of whom are women.
Link: www.bracuk.net
Jonathan Fryer 