Clean, Connect-How a slum raised its resilience.
Despite the informal land status, Ershadnagor is bustling with life. Market stalls are filled with produce, many shops line the streets and lanes. In addition to the infrastructure development, some residents are expanding and upgrading their homes. Pointing to the many construction sites in his ward, the ward councillor says not without pride that ‘more improvements have happened here in the past three years than in the preceding 47.”
Swiss Red Cross (SRC) and Bangladesh Red Crescent Society (BDRCS) had first come to Ershadnagor (also knwon as ward 49) in 2016, when they started the Urban Empowerment Project (UEP). In late 2018, SRC and BDRCS started planning for a new project. Focussing on blocks 3,5, and 6, they conducted a baseline that helped shape the new Urban Empowerment and Resilience (UER) project. The project covers 16,000 people across 3,300 households – roughly in the northwestern half of the ward.