সময় এসেছে বাঁধ ভাঙার It was my first visit to Khulna. I have got an opportunity to visit Dacope Upazilla parishad in Khulna. As I know it is located on the banks of the Rupsha and Bhairab in Khulna District. According to the local people information, I have been able to know that Dacope Upazila consists of 10 union parishads. The main rivers in Dacope are Pasur, Sibsa, Manki and Bhadra. Luckily, I had the opportunity to sail through some of these rivers on my way to Dacope. These rivers portray the natural beauty of the area. The southern part of this upazilla is surrounded by the Sundarban Mangrove Forest. Development activities have been going on in this upazilla for a long time. ActionAid Bangladesh is contributing towards that. ActionAid Bangladesh with the help of a local partner NGO has been running their activities to improve the overall condition of the Kamarkhola & Sutarkhali union as I have witnessed during my visit. Disaster is one of the major obstructions to prosperity in the region. People are living under risk from various types of natural disaster. Cyclone ‘Aila’ in 2009 was one of the evidence of the uncertainty of life and livelihood. They had been suffering for years even now from the devastating incident. After cyclone Aila, total life style has changed in this region. However, before going to Dacope I had a preconceived notion about women of that union. I thought that they cannot go out of their houses and contribute in any economic activities because of social barriers. Not only that, I thought they are less aware of about disaster preparedness and mitigation. But after visiting Dacope my perception has totally changed. They are simply superb to me. They are not only contributing to the economic activities of their families but also raising awareness of local people in their village. 6th DIPECHO action plan by ActionAid aims to increase capacity to assess and mitigate disaster risks and to ensure preparedness for effective emergency response since 2011. Dacope is one of these. Therefore, with the help of AAB DIPECHO VI team; women has established disaster fund where they save 5 taka per month. Apart from that they have received various trainings regarding disaster preparedness. Women have started to raise awareness of the women who did not receive the trainings. Simultaneously, they have conveyed messages to their husbands so that their husbands can spread the message to other men of the region. There are 26 reflect circles under local rights program of ActionAid Bangladesh in Dacope. The reflect circles women have been doing aquaculture for their financial security. They have been doing fish cultivation and sell those to market. DIPECHO VI action plan has provided much training regarding disasters to them. Gradually, the trained women have raised plinth of their house, got to know about early warning system, constructed road in some of their village areas. They have raised their tube wells so that salty water cannot enter into the tube wells during disaster. I was really surprised to see when I visited Sutarkhali union of Dacope upazila. Women collect ‘Kewra (a mangrove fruit)’ for making pickle. They are real hero to me because it is risky business. Tigers may attack anytime in those places where they go to collect the fruits. They make those to sell in the market for their economic betterment. These are all I have seen which gave very good impression to me. But one question has emerged in my mind when I was in Dacope. People are still suffering from lack of safe drinking water along with shortage of sanitary latrines. Someone from Dacope asked me to work for sanitary latrines seriously. And the person informed they are using water from river for drinking. Right now they need to preserve rain water urgently. Then why do not the people take initiatives to save rain water? There are very few rain harvesters in Dacope which are highly insufficient for the community people. I hope these two major issues will be solved immediately. Nonetheless, people in Dacope are getting responsive about their education including women. Most of the girl children go to school and child space for their cultural exercise. It was really inspiring to me. After the catastrophic cyclone Aila people have turned around and got the strength to fight with disasters although there remain still some hurdles.