Daorui Mro, a 6-year-old girl from the indigenous Mro community, lives atop a hill called Minnikpara with her family in Bandarban in remote southeast Bangladesh. She started fetching water with her mother last year. Now, it’s the sole responsibility of the six-year old. She walks for an hour downhill every morning and returns at noon with water.
This is not just Daorui’s story – it is the reality of countless children in Bangladesh.
For millions in Bangladesh, access to clean water remains a daily battle. In remote communities, especially in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, this struggle is deeply ingrained in everyday life. In Bangladesh, 3.3 million people still lack access to clean water close to home. Without piped water, the burden of fetching it falls disproportionately on women and girls – they are more than ten times as likely than men to be responsible for fetching water. When families have clean water close to home, girls can stay in school, women can pursue livelihoods, and entire communities can thrive.
Daorui returns home at noon, carrying four cooking pot of water she went to fetch at dawn © BRAC
In hard-to-reach areas like Bandarban, a hilly district in southeastern Bangladesh, the journey to find water stretches for hours. Even after reaching a stream, the indigenous communities living there have to search for water. The water they finally get is not safe for drinking. Finding water is more difficult in summers as these small streams of water dry up.
Beyond survival: The cost of water insecurity
A study has shown that 85% of water collection is done by women and 4.7% by girls. In Chittagong Hill Tracts area, this extra task of collecting water leaves women to shoulder the increasing burden of household and farm responsibilities.
The water crisis is not limited to one crisis but is connected with other problems. The time spent fetching water keeps girls out of school, limits their opportunities, and puts their health at risk. It is a sacrifice no child should have to make.
The consequences of using unsafe water or open sources are dire: waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea and skin infections, particularly among children and the elderly, are rampant. This has not only burdened their daily lives but has also perpetuated cycles of poverty, poor health, and limited opportunities, particularly for women and children.
The longest wait in Jogendra Para
For the people of Jogendra Para in Bandarban, waiting for water is an exhausting routine. Tutuli Tanchangya, a community member from this area, describes the struggle. They have a water pit from a nearby water stream, but the demand far exceeds the supply.
“I wake up with the sun and go outside to collect water. This is my first task in the morning as the queue for water is very long. The most frustrating part is the wait.”
Tutuli at Jogendra para waiting for hours until water flows into the pit, a daily struggle to survive © BRAC
To fill each pot, she must sit in a pit-like hole and wait for the water to trickle in. Each pot requires 40 to 50 minutes to fill. Sometimes, Tutuli can only fill one pot before she has to leave for her job as a day laborer on other people’s land.
“One pot of water is not enough; I often have to collect water again in the evening after returning home. In winter, the water pits become dry. I am forced to collect water from the river during that season which is even more unsafe. Livestock and other animals also use the same river. My four-year-old son continues to suffer from diarrhoea; in our community, children have skin diseases as well,” said Tutuli.
Piping hope: Problem identification
Kyaw May Ching, a community member from the Marma community and leader of the Village Development Organisation (VDO), faced a similar situation to Tutuli Tanchongga even a few months ago in 2024. She joined the VDO platform after hearing that other women from her community join together to discuss their problems and make decisions to solve them for their community.
Women from the indigenous community gather for a VDO meeting, identifying and discussing the challenges they face. © BRAC
“Ali bhai (from BRAC) asked us in our meeting about the number one problem in our Marma community of Mong Pa Khai Para village. We identified water as our first problem. Later on, through multiple meetings with our community leader, other members, and community women, we made the decision to establish a piped water network.”
Community as a local agent of change
Community members of Mong Pa Khai Para are responsible for making the system sustainable and taking ownership. This piped water system has been a collaborative effort, with the community playing an integral role. People from the community contributed approximately BDT 113,333 BDT (15.2% of the project cost) and volunteered during various stages of construction, including transporting materials and installing the water tanks.
Now the community members like Kay mi ching, 141 households have access to safely managed water in Mong Pa Khai Para. © BRAC
It has a deep borehole with a capacity of 10,000 liters stored in two tanks, now situated atop a three-story school building. This system is set to transform the lives of the community by providing safely managed water directly to the village via an underground pipe network through twelve water points.
“We have formed a committee of seven members to decide how to pay the electricity bills and maintain the system,” shared Kaymi Ching Marma.
The piped water network, developed through community participation and financial contribution with technical support from BRAC Integrated Development programme, now provides safely managed water to 141 Marma households in remote Kurukpata Union in Alikadam of Bandarban.
Crisis demand action
Chittagong Hill Tracts is a home to almost 1.85 million people, nearly half of whom belong to 11 indigenous communities. For these indigenous populations, access to water is not just a development challenge, it is a daily uphill battle, intertwined with marginalisation, geography, and generations of exclusion. The water crisis in communities like Jogendra Para and Mong Pa Khai Para is not an isolated issue; it is deeply connected to broader challenges like health, education, livelihoods, and gender equity.
The success of the piped water initiative in Mong Pa Khai Para offers more than just relief—it provides a blueprint for sustainable, community-led development across the Global South. In regions where geography, inequality, and systemic neglect intersect, top-down solutions often fail to reach those most in need. But when communities have the tools to identify their own challenges and lead the response, solutions become not only more relevant but also more resilient.
Facts Only
* Daorui, a 6-year-old girl from the Mro community, fetches water with her mother daily by walking an hour downhill to return at noon.
* In Bangladesh, 3.3 million people lack access to clean water close to home.
* Women collect 85% of water and girls collect 4.7%.
* In the Chittagong Hill Tracts area, the task of collecting water leaves women with increased household and farm responsibilities.
* In Bandarban, finding water in hilly areas requires long journeys, and streams may not be safe for drinking.
* For the people of Jogendra Para, waiting to fill water pits can take hours.
* Filling one pot from a pit can take 40 to 50 minutes.
* In winter, water pits in some areas become dry, forcing collection from rivers which may contain livestock waste and be unsafe.
* Women from the Marma community organized to establish a piped water network in Mong Pa Khai Para village.
* The project provided safely managed water to 141 Marma households via a borehole and underground pipe network.
Executive Summary
A 6-year-old girl in Bangladesh, Daorui, is responsible for fetching water for her family by walking an hour downhill each morning to return with water. Access to clean water remains a significant struggle for millions in Bangladesh, particularly in remote areas like the Chittagong Hill Tracts, where 3.3 million people lack access to clean water close to home. This burden disproportionately falls on women and girls, who are more likely than men to collect water.
In hard-to-reach areas like Bandarban, finding water is arduous; indigenous communities often search for water from streams, which may not be safe, and the availability of water decreases during the summer when streams dry up. This water insecurity directly impacts opportunities, as the time spent fetching water limits girls' access to education and puts their health at risk.
In Jogendra Para, community members face long waits for water from communal pits, with the process of filling pots being slow and physically demanding. Despite these challenges, a community initiative in Mong Pa Khai Para saw women organize to identify water as a primary issue and collectively decide to establish a piped water network, contributing resources and labor. This effort resulted in safely managed water access for 141 households through a system involving a borehole and an underground pipe network.
Full Take
The narrative juxtaposes an individual experience of acute physical struggle with a successful, community-led infrastructural solution. A critical pattern emerges around the intersection of geography, gendered labor, and systemic neglect: remote indigenous communities face chronic water insecurity that translates directly into health risks, educational barriers, and economic constraints for women and girls. The failure of top-down solutions is implied when the text notes that general approaches often fail in regions where geography and marginalization intersect, setting up a crucial contrast with community-led success.
The transformation in Mong Pa Khai Para demonstrates that agency, when mobilized through collective identification of needs (as seen in the VDO process), can overcome physical and infrastructural barriers. This suggests that sustainability is less dependent on external intervention alone and more reliant on local ownership, resource contribution, and governance structures—such as forming a committee for maintenance.
The deeper implication lies in recognizing water access not as a purely developmental issue but as a direct measure of human dignity and systemic inclusion. The cycle described—insecurity leading to illness, poverty, and limited opportunity—is perpetuated by the spatial and social inequalities that privilege certain groups while marginalizing others. Future analysis must focus on how the infrastructure implemented (the piped network) interacts with existing power dynamics within the community to ensure these gains are not simply temporary fixes but sources of sustained self-determination.
Bridge questions: What mechanisms exist in regions where such community mobilization is rare to foster similar local agency? How can development frameworks be designed to prioritize localized participatory assessment over centralized infrastructure delivery? What long-term social and economic shifts occur once water security becomes a baseline expectation rather than a project goal?