A girl catches fish at Doara Bazer, Sunamganj, on 22 May 2013.
In May 2013, JPH-BRAC University students visited Sunamganj to observe and participate in the Level Three Monitoring (L3M) exercise in four villages of Mannargao Union in Dowarabazar Upazila of Sunamganj District in Sylhet Division of Bangladesh. Level 3 Monitoring (L3M), is the third level in a four level UNICEF framework designed to provide guidance for monitoring the situation of the most deprived women and children in terms of the inequities they face and to inform policy and program decisions aimed at accelerating progress toward attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with equity. After their arrival, students from BRAC University were given an overview with a presentation on the L3M exercise on the five tracers interventions and briefed on the activities that were going to take place during their stay. In the field, they observed the Facility Assessment, Focus Group Discussions, Water Point and Household Survey exercises and discussed and collected feedback and comments from the community members on the bottlenecks of the five tracers interventions. They also conducted surveys of households that were not selected for the L3M exercise. They shared their observations and findings at the end of each day and were concerned about the level of arsenic found in the water points of some of the households. During their three day visit, they visit community members living in isolated villages in the Haor areas of Mannargao Union where the area goes under water for six months of the year and families live without access to any government services (health, power, etc.). Families without boats have difficulty in sustaining their day to day lives, and have to move to higher grounds when the water level rises.
