BATB Changes Lives of Tobacco -Farmers in Hill Districts

Source from:  July 18 2005 bangladesh-web.com 07/20/2005

The British American Tobacco, Bangladesh has undertaken a project titled 'community development initiative promoting biodiversity and sustainable development best practices' for its tobacco growers. Under the project, seeing beyond mere profit and business, the company is providing different socio-economic and environmental supports to its tobacco farmers and their families, to improve their lives and livelihood in Khagrachari, Bandarban and Cox's Bazar districts, said a company spokesman on Sunday. There are more than 15 different tobacco companies operating in the hill districts, however, only BATB has come forward with such initiatives. 'We initiated this programme, because we believe that we can uplift the living condition of the farmers through which, we can contribute to the development of the country,' said the development affairs manager of the BATB, Shuvasish Barua, adding, 'this is an initiative of our corporate social responsibility.' The farmer families are receiving three different sorts of development support—health, education, and environment-friendly economic opportunities. The company is providing primary health-care support to the farmer families throughout the year, through reputed non-governmental organisations network called the 'Smiling Sun'. The farmer families receive prescription, medication and some pathological tests at free of cost. This is a noteworthy effort as the company is, through its sponsorship, helping the 'Smiling Sun' network to go to remote and secluded corners of the hill tracts to provide its satellite clinic services. BATB also provides sanitary latrines among the farmer families at free of cost. Because of challenging terrain and limited infrastructure facilities in the hill districts, raising literacy rate remains a big concern. Keeping that in mind, BATB is giving financial assistance to the eligible children of its farmers to complete higher secondary education. On the other hand, to bring the remotest region of the country to the information highway, the company recently established a free basic IT education centre in Chakaria. For ages and for varying reasons, this region of the country did not manage to join the bandwagon of the mainstream economic development process of the country. Due to this reality, the people's lives have become cruel subject to the vicious cycle. To address this, the company tried to come up with a year-round economic solution for these farmers, like commercial afforestation, providing free saplings and one-year maintenance cost to the interested farmers, apart from tobacco growing. Enditem