Volunteers in Bangladesh support a wide variety of vital projects.
Our volunteers are supporting communities’ access sustainable sources of food and income. They are working on education initiatives in Rohingya camps as well as supporting sexual health services and gender equality services.
Volunteering in Bangladesh
Mabia, 5, at safe space centre with supervisor Muslima Zannat Rima. The centre is situated at Rohingya Refugee Camp 15 in Jamtoli of Ukhiya.
VSO has been active in Bangladesh since 1974.
Over the past 30 years poverty has consistently fallen, with an 81% increase in its Human Development Index. However, rural areas are home to many small-scale farmers, sixty percent of whom live below the poverty line and are threatened by a changing climate that brings more regular flooding, and decreasing freshwater.
VSO is working to improve health outcomes, ensure that more people have safe, sustainable means of making a living, and working with communities to respond to the effects of a changing climate and environment.
Our projects are making real progress, and we’re excited to see what we will achieve in a time of national growth of industry and opportunity.
In response to the Rohinga refugee crisis VSO has also been operating emergency education initiatives. Our work provides safe spaces for Rohinghya children to play and continue their education.
Volunteer stories from Bangladesh
The volunteer empowering women in the world's largest refugee camp
Rukaiya Siddika is a VSO volunteer and ICT in Education Specialist who works on the Education in Emergencies programme in a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Read her volunteer story.
The volunteer helping Rohingya refugee children regain their childhood
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugee children are living in camps in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, having experienced conflict and trauma. Arifa is a VSO volunteer is championing play-based learning to help these children regain their childhood.
5 things I've learned volunteering in a refugee camp
Kenyan volunteer Ann Wambui shares what she's learnt as a volunteer in Cox's Bazar camp in Bangladesh.