Bangladesh Barisal Urban V2R Project 2015

The British Red Cross along with Australian and Swedish Red Cross is supporting the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society (BDRCS) to implement a resilience building programme through its network of volunteers in ten urban slums in the city of Barisal, southern Bangladesh. Goal of this project is to reduce vulnerability and increase resilience of 10 targeted slum communities of Barisal city corporation.

Barisal city lies on the banks of the river Kirtankhola, 180 km south of the capital Dhaka and 100 km north of the coast of the Bay of Bengal, one of the areas most exposed to cyclones in the world. There are 24 canals crisscrossing the city, most of which are used as major drainage channels It spreads over 58 sq. km and is populated by 320,000 inhabitants, almost equally distributed between women and men, per the latest data. The estimated population density is slight under 30,000 inhabitants per km2.

It is one of the biggest river ports in Bangladesh, connected by navigable rivers with Chittagong, Dhaka and Khulna and well served by all-weather roads to the north and south, as well as a domestic airport. The city becomes usually the base for cyclone relief and recovery operations and is a key transhipment centre for agricultural produce from the fertile but vulnerable coastal region and Dhaka. Barisal city corporation is comprised of 30 administrative wards, lowest tyre of administrative unit of the city corporation.