Boikari School Drinking Water and Hygiene Corner was inaugurated on June 16 2023 by Mummamed Humayun Kabir, honorable Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Satkhira district while the special Guest were Fatema-tuz-Zohora Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO), Satkhira Sadar Upazila, Md. Zahangir Alam, Assistant Director of Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, Elian Herman, Head of Development Program (HoP), Swisscontact, Dr. Urs Gruetter, CEO of Max Ditting AG, Bipasa Hossain, Team Leader of Swisscontact, Chairman of Boikary Union Parishad and others. Satkhira District Education Officer Ajit Kumar Sarkar presided over the event. A total 400 participants including teachers, students and different professionals were attended.
Due to salinity and arsenic contamination, drinking water of Boikary Union is not drinkable. To address the drinking water scarcity, LEDARS implementing a project entitled H2O: A Systemic Water Entrepreneurship Project in Bangladesh with the financial support of Swiss contact Bangladesh. Under the project a renewable energy-based water treatment plan installed in the Boikary School, Satkhira Sadar upazila of Satkhira district. A water ATM also instead outside of the school from where community people will collect drinking water from the plant. Besides this, a hygiene corner was established at the school with the automatic sanitary pad vending machine. The water plant adopted a new entrepreneurship model with educational institutes to make sustain the water plant.
Appreciating this initiative, Deputy Commissioner of Satkhira District Muhammad Humayun Kabir said, “We must continue to innovate to reduce the impact of climate change, one of the examples of which is the water plant set up by Baikari School to address the acute water crisis in Satkhira. This is a timely initiative.” Following this, Dr. Urs Grater, sponsor of the H2O project, said, “If we all work together to achieve the same goal, we can introduce more innovative solutions by applying innovative creative methods.”
