Khulna trip

Update

I have started my impact monitoring work since the sixth of June. I had enough time for planning this work, so June has been a laid back month for me.  I finished my first field visit last week and will go on another one in the next two weeks. I am really looking forward to these next field trips to northern Bangladesh and southern Bangladesh. The first field trip is to Khulna district.  In south Bangladesh, prawn farming is common. Hopefully, I will get some opportunity to visit some prawn hatcheries. Prawns are hatched in saline water and then they have to be transferred to non-saline water. These little creatures are very protective of their females. I think it is cool that these tiny things have so much personality. I am going to Khulna to conduct impact monitoring of technology dissemination in aquaculture. My last trip is to Bogra, which is six hours from Dhaka. I will be doing impact monitoring of technology dissemination in potato farming.

Group Interview with Farmers

Women in Bangladesh

I have visited some areas in Bangladesh. Most visits were during the panchayat level election time. I am impressed with how active women are in Bangladesh. Many of election candidates were women. In fact, places where I conducted focus group discussion, I got to watch some woman candidate campaign for election. I understand Bangla about 80 percent and I can tell her campaign was great. It was a very powerful political campaign. I cannot even imagine coming up with such agenda for a political campaign. In focus group discussions I had invited 12 women, but in one of my focus group, there were 30 participants. I asked them why they all wanted to come. They told me they had lot to say and I thought that was great. Bangladeshi women participation in politics is an equally impressive thing. The major political leaders are women and the major ministries are run by women.

Presenting findings