A CHARITY based in Rugby has won an award from the UN for a project which helps thousands of families living on the front line of climate change to overcome poverty and malnutrition.
Practical Action’s sandbar cropping project in Bangladesh won the award from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for its innovative approach.
The project has improved the lives of 50,000 landless people in Bangladesh using a technique which allows pumpkins to be grown on sandy, barren soil left behind when flood waters recede.
Training people in new skills means that people can grow up to 600 pumpkins a year – extra income which can be used to send their children to school, buy livestock and become more resilient to the climate.
The charity, whose headquarters are in Albert Street, launched the Pumpkins Against Poverty fundraising appeal in 2015 for the project which was matched pound for pound by the UK Government, raising over £1million.
Chief executive Paul Smith-Lomas said: “We’d like to thank everyone who made a donation to this project. It allowed us to scale up an initial idea to show how it could work on an even bigger scale – it’s amazing to see what can be achieved by a little clever thinking.
“The difference it has made to the communities we work with has been astounding and we can’t wait to see the wider impact it will have across the country.”
Hasin Jahan, Director of Practical Action Bangladesh said: “On the back of this award and the huge success of the project, we are calling on others to scale up this ingenious solution to bring about wider change across Bangladesh.
“We’ve proved that this works and changes people’s lives for good and it really highlights the power of Practical Action’s approach.”
Practical Action inspires people in countries across Africa, South East Asia and Latin America to discover and adopt practical ways to free themselves from poverty and disadvantage. Visit www.practicalaction.org for more information.
