Background: Poverty brief: Mymensingh

Mymensingh, located beside the Brahmaputra River in the north of Bangladesh, is one of the biggest and oldest Pourashavas (municipalities) in Bangladesh, covering around 22 square kilometers. According to the Census of 2001 the total population of the Mymensingh Pourashava was 227,047. Due to migration from the villages and rapid natural population growth within the city the number of inhabitants is much higher today. The Pourashava assumed 2005 about 375,000 inhabitants. Almost half of the population (45%) is considered as "poor", many of them living in slums under bad conditions. Allo ver the city, the municipality counts 94 slum areas with altogether more than 140,000 inhabitants.
The slum dwellers (usually) are working as day labourer, rickshaw puller and Hawkers or running small businesses. The average income in the slums of Mymensingh is estimated as 3000 Taka a month.


References:

Socio-Economic Household Survey of Mymensingh 2004 conducted by Bangladesh Unnayan
Parishad for ADB.

Poverty Impact Assessment in Mymensingh by GTZ in November 2008.

Ahsan, Shaikh Muhammad Mehedi (2009), Participation of Urban Poor in Municipal Governance in Bangladesh. A Case Study of Mymensingh Pourashava, Dissertationa at Civil Service College, Dhaka.


However, the individuals who are hidden in the statistics, their daily live, dreams and ideas can not be expressed in numbers. None of them are average. Poverty has always a face, a name and a story...