Country Profile- Bangladesh
Bangladesh borders with India to the East, West and North
and is known geographically as the mouth of the mighty Ganges River. On
one hand this makes the region highly fertile, on the other, this can
result in incredibly destructive flooding of the delta. Formerly part
of the British Empire, what we currently call Bangladesh was separated
from India in 1947 to become East Pakistan because of its majority Muslim
population. Declared independent from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh has
made huge progress in recent decades. Despite this, there are still millions
of desperately poor people living in abject poverty. Like India, most
of the population live in rural areas however Bangladesh is even more
overpopulated than its large neighbour.
|
Facts and Stats according to UNICEF (2001):
Population: approximately 140 million.
The average person is 19.7 years old.
77 children and babies in 1000 under the age of 5 die.
Life expectancy at birth is 60 years.
Women have an average of 3.6 children each.
29% of the population live on less than $1.00 per day.
48% of children under five are moderately or severely underweight.
Other Facts and Stats:
69% of women are illiterate.
Approximately 85% of the population is Muslim, with the remainder
almost all Hindu.
|
|
Asian Aid's Role
Asian Aid began work in Bangladesh in the late 1970's
with the sponsorship of children from very poor families in SDA
schools. Sponsorship reached its peak in 1997 with 1280 children
in the program.
We currently sponsor 850 children in Bangladesh. As
this nation has become more self-sufficient, and as it has received
more funds from international donors in recent years, our work has
been scaled back as we focus on more needy areas. Of course all
of the children we sponsor are very poor.
|
|
