On International Women’s Day CARE charts big improvements in
Bangladesh WNN MDG Stories (WNN/CARE) Dhaka, BANGLADESH: Once
prohibited from leaving her home without a male escort,
Bangladesh native Rina Begum blossomed into a member of three
school committees as she became the leader of something in
Bangladesh known as an EKATA group that, among other things,
stopped four child marriages. “This room was not the only
destination in my life,” she said from the building where her
group meets. “I had to explore beyond it.” Economists and
nutrition experts were shocked at the data coming out of
SHOUHARDO, a $126 million project designed to fight malnutrition
in Bangladesh and improve the lives of more than 2 million of
the country’s poorest people. Stunting, a measure showing the
shortfall in a child’s growth due to malnutrition, has plummeted
28 percent from February 2006 to November 2009, even as
Bangladesh suffered a crop-crushing cyclone and food-price
spikes caused by global grain shortages. The annual stuntin