About 25 school children were seen recently trying to hold earthen pots for a safer and livable shades for the natural birds in a rural area of Harinakundu upazila of Jhenaidah. The initiative was taken for the birds and ensures fertility in the arable lands with the birds’ litres. HEED Bangladesh, a local social welfare organization working for a safer environment, education and health organized the programme organized the event.
When this correspondent visited Shakharidah Bazer area of Harinakundu upazila. talked to a number of children, especially, children studying in schools said they were engaged in setting up a number of earthen pots at the branches of trees at Shakhridah, Basudevpur, Chandpur, Talbaria and Kanydah villages under Shakharidah union. The earthen pots were made in a special technique so that the birds can enter in to the pots easily and leave the pot without any trouble whenever they desire.
Schoolboys Likhon Mia, Imran Hossain, Asif Hossain, Shehab Ali, Samrat and Limon when contacted said they have been serving there as volunteers to set up the earthen pots on branches of trees and look after same regular so that no one could hunt the birds anyway from their humanitarian point of view.
Two senior citizens businessman Abdul Kuddus and farmer Abdur Rahim of Shakharidah village said the schoolchildren will play role to nurse the birds so that they can move from any branch of trees to others and take shelter in their respective nests in the earthen pots. The duo said the birds will eat up the harmful pests in the croplands and enrich the land discharging their litres on the same land for a longer time.
Deputy Director (DD) of the department of social welfare in Jhenaidah Abdul Latif Sheikh distributed T shits and earthen pots among the volunteers at HEED Bangladesh office at Shakhridah in Jhenaidah on Tuesday morning. Deputy director of seed certification agency (SCA) in Jhenaidah Ismail Hossain attended the programme as special guest. The speakers said the nature of the agrarian country Bangladesh is now under threat when the harmful chemical fertilizer and pesticides have been playing role in destroy the nature including birds and other useful species of lives.
The discussants said incentive caring of the birds establishing nests and earthen pots might help increase the number of birds in a continuous process. They said this sort of welfare activities should be expanded for the interest of the nature and our environment.
HEED Bangladesh chief executive officer Zillur Rahman when contacted said they have been conducting a number of programmes to save the nature and ensure safe food security for the people with their limited efforts. Combined efforts with the collaboration of government sectors like agriculture, social forestry, social welfare, fisheries, cooperatives might bring more effective results.