Christmas Appeal 2008

This year we are seeking funding for a mobile health and education centre for extremely poor, rural communities in Bangladesh. During the monsoon season many villages were completely cut off from the mainland due to the flooding, meaning that they have no access to any form of schooling or healthcare. When our Programme Coordinator, Zaman, visited one such village he met Rahila, a 59-year-old widow. Rahila’s daughter in law, Shafia, had tragically lost her life in childbirth just weeks before. The delivery had become difficult as the baby was breech, the floodwater was very high and there were no trained birth attendants present.

After 6 hours of traumatic labour, Rahila and her son had no choice but to put Shafia in their small fishing boat and make the 3-hour journey to the nearest clinic. Both Shafia and her baby died in the boat on the way to hospital. This sad and untimely loss of life could so easily be avoided by providing education on safe delivery and a mobile health clinic and so with your support LfL would like to provide this community with a fully equipped mechanised boat that would be on hand to provide immediate healthcare and advice and transport people to hospital when necessary. The boat will also have library and education facilities to enable children to continue their studies during the three to six months of monsoon. If you would like to make a contribution please clink on the “How I Can Help” section of the website. Thank you and seasons greetings from all the Learning for Life team.