Beyond survival: Building resilient communities through co-creation for the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

Abstract: With our project, we are focusing on the Rohingya refugee issue. In 2017 thousands of people had to cross the borders of Myanmar due to mass genocide triggered by ethnic cleansing and around 800,000 of them flee to Bangladesh as refugees. Whereas, Bangladesh has 2 million informal settlers of its own known as internally displaced people (IDPs) who have been displaced due to extreme climatic conditions. So, we are dealing with the issue of how refugees can coexist in a country where there are already thousands homeless.  Currently, the government has built a settlement for 100,000 people on a newly emerged island, Bhashan Char in the Bay of Bengal. Thousands of Rohingya refugees are already being relocated there. However, with the predicted sea-level rise not only the island but the majority of the coastal area of Bangladesh might go underwater. Our project is an attempt to imagine a resilient community, where both refugees and Bangladeshi people will be able to coexist in Bhashan Char, build empathy for each other, and be connected with the surroundings. Simultaneously, be able to co-develop preparedness for future changes connected to sea-level rise using local potential.  Hence, the aim of our project is to establish conditions of co-existence for the refugees and IDPs of Bangladesh where they can co-create resilient communities in connection with the local context and the changing environment.