The Issue
The issue
In the river island regions of Bangladesh, monsoon season is longer and more intense every year, with flood waters remaining anywhere from six to eight months. Frequent climate-related disasters are destroying crops and livelihoods, limiting access to essential services and forcing many girls out of school. Gender discrimination and underfunded schools also often prevent many girls from learning.
Runa’s approach
Runa is a tireless advocate for education, climate change and human rights. She began her career as a teacher and saw firsthand the inequalities facing students in char (river islands), regions. Students often had limited access to trained teachers, resources and had to travel long distances to school. To help address this issue Runa founded Friendship, an organisation that works to educate and empower climate-impacted communities in riverbank areas of northern Bangladesh through programming and community engagement.
With their grant from Malala Fund, Runa and the team at Friendship work to minimise the digital divide, build climate resilience and support and train young climate advocates. They will provide girls’ secondary schools with computer rooms and provide both girls, staff and community members with digital and climate literacy training. Friendship will also train girls on leadership, climate advocacy and create opportunities for girls to take their messages to leaders at local, national and global level forums.
More about Runa
There are 6 other Education Champions working in Bangladesh.
