DHAKA (UCAN): Caritas Bangladesh is supporting and rehabilitating thousands of poor and low-income people affected by the Covid-19 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. The agency’s aid programmes resumed in January following a break for Christmas and New Year holidays.
Caritas Rajshahi, which covers northern Bangladesh, has a target to assist about 2,685 people affected by the pandemic. Each person is to receive 15,000 taka ($1,369) in three phases to help them start income-generating schemes like small businesses.
On January 4 and 7, Caritas Rajshahi distributed cash handouts of 5,000 taka ($456) to 508 people in Rajshahi city in the north.
“We hope these poor people can do something like (start a) small business for a livelihood as they have lost jobs and income,” Sukleash George Costa, the Caritas Rajshahi regional director, said.
Costa said that Caritas has been selecting and supporting extremely poor and marginalised communities by conducting awareness-building programmes, installing billboards and distributing leaflets in urban slums. The agency has also set up dozens of hand-washing points, repaired many toilets, improved drainage systems and constructed bathing spaces for poor people, he said.
“Poor people dropped from the priority list of state support programmes as big business communities are preferred. Only a handful of NGOs (non-government agencies) like Caritas have continued to assist the poor people,” Costa added.
The World Bank estimates that about one quarter of more than 160 million Bangladeshis live below the poverty line or earn less than US$2 ($15.5) a day. A leading economist at the agency predicted that Covid-19 might push another 50 million into poverty.
According to Caritas data, its eight regional offices have supported over 226,000 people with cash and non-cash aid packages worth over US$4.65 million ($36.05 million) in 44 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts.
