Bangladesh will be heard on Saturday night at Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh holiday center. The whole world will hear about the achievements of the women of five remote villages of Jurachhari in the hill district of Rangamati. The global climate conference is underway in Sharm el-Sheikh. In that conference, the initiative of the women of Jurachari is getting the ‘Local Adaptation Champions Award’ of the international organization Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) for their contribution to climate adaptation. Rangamati Hill District Council will get this award for sponsoring the initiative of women.

GCA has selected 4 projects from 4 countries out of 170 countries. Among these, Rangamati Zilla Parishad is getting the award in the ‘Inclusive Leadership’ category.

In the remote villages of Chittagong Hill Tracts, people’s water problems are not unknown. And women have to bear this pain more. Various development organizations work in the hills to reduce the water problem. They also try to solve. Hapityesh for water, projects of development partners, ‘success stories’ of hardship reduction are often heard. The women of Jurachari have eased their water woes. Rangamati District Council had institutional support in their work. But the women’s struggle for water and the novelty of the work gave the women of Jurachari this honor.

Former United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed his enthusiasm about this initiative of the women of Jurachari and said, “The initiative is a combined form of local and traditional management. This is done for marginal climate adaptation. Their initiative is not only sustainable, but it can be followed by others appropriately and effectively in dealing with climate change impacts.’

GCA is the largest organization working on climate adaptation. Its headquarters are in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The co-chair of the organization is former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Awards are being given in four categories. They are inclusive leadership, financial governance, capacity and knowledge and local innovation. Apart from the Rangamati Zilla Parishad, the other three award-winning organizations are Swayam Shikshan Appray, a non-governmental organization from Pune, India, Community Development and Advocacy Forum, Nepal (CDAFN), a non-governmental organization from Nepal, and Adaptation Consortium, a Kenyan organization.