‘Difference should be there…?’

In April 2014 Jacob-Jan Vreugdenhil visited Bangladesh, for the development of the new WASH programme. He experienced first hand the need for a new project…

“Together with my colleagues from partner organization CSS Bangladesh, I walk towards Dacope. In this community home to people from the lowest caste, the landless. Around me water, water everywhere. It takes little effort to speak to a number of women in groups. They take me to a pond, reserved especially for drinking. In a game I create what ‘clean’ drinking water. It looks brown and murky. The water where it washes sees tanner.

As we walk further, we come to another village, Deypara. With people from a slightly higher caste, but still poor. Here is a pump. And a long line of people with beautiful, metal water pots. Hours sometimes standing here. Parts of the day there is just no water coming from the pump. The landless people from Dacope don’t come out here, anyway. The cast does not allow that, difference should be there.

The new water and sanitation program which we want to start is desperately needed, I realize. Because difference does not have to exist…”