A Beacon of Sustainable Living
Jayanti Rani Saha lives in Pratapnagar, Assasuni, one of the climate change hotspots in Bangladesh. She is a housewife, sharing a modest home with her husband and three daughters. Her husband earns just enough to sustain their family of five. But Jayanti’s determination to contribute has turned their yard into a thriving oasis of hope and sustainability.
Jayanti is a proud member of a female farmer group supported by SAJIDA Foundation’s ENGAGE4Sundarbans project. This project aims to strengthen social and climate resilience in the Sundarbans delta, an area heavily affected by climate change. Together with her groupmates, Jayanti is currently cultivating beetroot to produce beetroot powder, which contains both nutritional and economic value.
Although Jayanti’s family doesn’t own agricultural land, they have two small ponds where they farm freshwater fish. But Jayanti’s transformation is most visible in her kitchen garden. She nurtures the garden with advice and training from SAJIDA Foundation. Determined to cultivate a healthy and self-sustaining lifestyle, Jayanti has transformed her garden into a diverse ecosystem.
In the winter, she focused on cultivating eggplants along with other vegetables. She crafts natural fertilisers and pesticides from kitchen leftovers, cow dung, and poultry manure instead of using chemicals in her garden. Her reasoning is simple yet profound, “Chemicals harm the insects and animals that are valuable for the environment. And I want my children to eat healthy food.” Her commitment to agroecology is a testament to her intuitive understanding of sustainable living.
“Chemicals harm the insects and animals that are valuable for the environment. And I want my children to eat healthy food.”
— Jayanti Rani Saha, Member of a female farmer group under ENGAGE4Sundarbans Project
Beyond cultivation, Jayanti repurposes household waste into fertiliser, pesticide, and cooking fuel. Cow dung cakes, neatly arranged on a coconut tree trunk in her yard, dry in the sun before being used as eco-friendly fuel. Her forward-thinking approach includes designating one eggplant plant as a seed plant, ensuring her family’s self-reliance in the next planting season. Notably, Jayanti’s garden also blooms with a vibrant scattering of flowers that attract beneficial insects, helps with pollination and also makes the space beautiful.
The backdrop to Jayanti’s story is Pratapnagar’s slow recovery from Cyclone Amphan, which devastated the region in 2020. The cyclone triggered prolonged waterlogging, heavy salinity, and the loss of greenery, leaving the land barren. But with the support of SAJIDA Foundation’s ENGAGE4Sundarbans initiative, Jayanti is rebuilding what was lost and creating something greener and more resilient.
Jayanti Rani Saha’s story is a reminder that resilience is about thriving in harmony with the world around us. Her passion, resourcefulness, and commitment to sustainability inspire not only her community but also anyone who dreams of making a difference, no matter how small their resources may seem.
Jayanti Rani Saha is member of a female farmer group under the ENGAGE4Sundarbans Project.