WCK reaches most vulnerable communities in northeast Bangladesh
World Central Kitchen’s Relief Team started hot meal distribution in Bangladesh following widespread monsoon flooding that stranded more than a million people. While water is receding in some regions, the terrain remains difficult to navigate, forcing our staff on the ground to adapt their strategies to best meet food and water needs together with our partners. To date, WCK has distributed over 30,000 meals.
After arriving in Sylhet in northeast Bangladesh, our teams divided into groups and began scouting villages including Noyagram, Rajar Bazar, Habiganj, Kulaura, Moulvibazar, and Juri. Some that were previously accessible by land can now only be reached by boat. With samosas, fruit, and water in hand, we worked to identify the most vulnerable communities in need of support. Wherever WCK goes, we provide familiar, portable meals in the early hours after a crisis before returning with hot meals or meal kits.
WCK teams carefully consider what forms of food aid are most appropriate. Some communities take up to four hours and several truck and boat transfers to reach, making food kits with shelf-stable items more feasible, especially if local residents have the ability to cook for themselves. We’ve been distributing meal kits in waterproof sacks that contain enough ingredients like puffed rice, molasses, and powdered milk to prepare 17 meals. Soon, the meal kits will triple in weight and capacity. Since many water sources are contaminated by floodwater, our kits also include water purification tablets to ensure families have access to potable water to cook with and drink.
When the journey is shorter and families do not have the ability to cook for themselves, we provide nourishing hot meals cooked by local partners. The team is also currently looking to equip community kitchens—people who have the space and resources to cook a few hundred or a few thousand meals each day—with what they need to prepare meals for their neighbors.
WCK’s Juan Camilo shared that our past partnerships and previous work in this exact region in 2022—when we provided 1.6 million meals to communities surrounding Sylhet—meant we could respond with the urgency and efficiency required to nourish impacted families. Our local leads, Ali and Mak, and our trusted partner, the Aman Ullah Convention Center, have been instrumental. On day one, the Convention Center had 2,000 food kits ready for distribution.
Our back-to-back 2022 responses, which ran from May to July, were enriched by the empathetic and determined leadership of Zomi—one of the WCK team members killed on April 1 in an IDF strike in Gaza that took the lives of seven beloved humanitarians. Our partners fondly remember working shoulder-to-shoulder with Zomi and her love for the people of Bangladesh. Her impact on our organization and around the world will undoubtedly be felt in many responses to come.
Zomi on the ground in Bangladesh during our 2022 response.
While our response is currently headquartered in northeast Bangladesh, our teams are also hearing reports of communities severely impacted by the monsoon flooding in the south and will soon explore ways to reach them. Stay up to date with the latest information from the ground by signing up to our newsletter to receive more information and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for real time updates.
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