By Sabya van Elswijk, This is Rowshan Ara Chowdhury. She is the grandmother of Alia Kamal, one of the artists of the Dhaka art project. When we first meet, Alia tells me how guilty she feels of having a grandmother in the house, with whom she barely speaks or has contact with. She says […] Continue reading → 
By Sabya van Elswijk, After our meeting with Boys of Bangladesh, we understand more about being gay in Bangladesh, and it is also clear you will not find people who call themselves ‘dragqueen’ openly here. We do want to work on this subject, and are looking for contacts in the Hijra community in Dhaka. Hijra’s […] Continue reading → 
By Sabya van Elswijk, Aroni brings us to her former neighbour, or ‘auntie’ as she calls her. Tara Adhikary is her name, and she has come to Bangladesh from Jamsitpur, India after she married in 1951. She had her two sons here, and lived in this neighbourhood for many years. This is Mirpur 10, where […] Continue reading → 
By Sabya Van Elswijk, One of the participants of the Dhaka art project is Aroni. She is a painter, and a dancer. Her father is a known Bangladeshi composer and musician, her brother is a composer, and her mother has her own music school. For the choice of the group of people she wants to […] Continue reading → 
The Dhaka project is published on Kunst, a Dutch media. Clic on the picture for see the original page. Continue reading → 
By Kallol Karmakar, Zohara Jhumu & Apurba Hasan. In this ‘divide and rule’ society there are many classes we can find. Among them middle class is one of the most reactive classes. To maintain their livelihood this class does a lot of work; the amount of rewards they get for this, the same amount of […] Continue reading → 
By Sumon, It is hard to recall the time, when with some of my friends we chatted on to the boat, near to a berth bank of the Burigonga river. It was in the middle of the day, somebody lay down and somebody relaxed to pass away a silent moment, then one of us just […] Continue reading → 
By Sabya van Elswijk, We are invited to meet with the director of Boys of Bangladesh, a network of gay people in Dhaka. Arriving at his place, human rights activist Tanvir Alim welcomes us and explains that they use apartments as informal meeting places. There are many volunteers; all of them spend time on Boys of […] Continue reading → 
Elderly Bangladesh: information Elderly in Bangladesh: By Sabya van Elswijk, To understand more about being old and living in Bangladesh, we took some parts of the Unnayan Onneshan Policy Brief On Present Social Context and Elderly Population in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, some programmes are made for the welfare of the elderly people. The programmes are: 4.1. […] Continue reading → 
Definitions By Sabya van Elswijk, Being in Dhaka, we find our definitions of the world constantly challenged. Working with homeless: these should be people without a house, without a place to sleep. But what if they live under a plastic roof? Are they promoted to the definition of being just poor, not homeless? Working […] Continue reading → 
