Rohingya Experience
Chris worked as a RedR Australia ‘Expert in Mission’ with UNDP in Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh from early April to early July 2018. This was in support of some of the 900,000 or so Rohingya refugees who live in 27 camps across the district. His job included a combination of the following: involvement in early warning systems for both heavy monsoonal downpours and tropical cyclones; representation of UNDP on various Working Groups; teaching of Disaster Risk Management (DRM) to BRAC, a major Bangladeshi NGO; and, in close coordination with both the Geological Survey of Bangladesh (GSB) and the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI), the installation of a number of rain gauges across some of the refugee camps. Check out the link below for a short two-page summary of his work there.
DownloadThe picture in the article is of one of the traditional Bangladeshi fishing boats visitors see along this stretch of coastline. This particular boat is one of the seven whose home is on the Cox’s Bazar beach along which Chris regularly ran along 2-3 times weekly. Other similar boats will be recognised by international staff and visitors to the refugee camps, in the river creeks, and hidden away on beaches, on that strip of coastal road leading south out of the city. Enclosed below is a good quality photo of this ‘Bangla boat’.
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