Bangladesh non-profit supports local arts, medicine

A Bangladesh-based cultural non-profit, that aims to promote art and artists from the region and bring international attention to Bangladesh and the Global South, will take on creative initatives to support the local arts and crafts industry as well as frontline healthcare workers in the country, it said.

The Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation (DBF), through its 'Bhumi' project, will support rural creative communities during the Covid-19 crisis.

This project will engage 60 traditional craftsmen from Santal, Rajbongshi and other indigenous communities of the Thakurgaon district in Bangladesh to support them and their families.

The craftsmen will work with Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts founder and artist Kamruzzaman Shadhin to produce a number of artworks for four months under health and safety guidelines, working with handloom fabric, bamboo work, harvest waste and land art.

Through this initiative, Bhumi will provide support for 250 people in the community and sustain their creative livelihoods, DBF said.

In particular, the project has started creating a community garden on an abandoned plot using traditional methods of farming to retrieve local agricultural knowledge, and harvest ancestral stories and practices in a community-generated work of 'land art.'

The artworks created during this project will be presented to the public at a later stage.

The foundation also said it donated 1,500 sets of imported PPE sets to frontline medical workers in hospitals, NGOs, and law enforcement services in Bangladesh.