The Fight of Ashashuni's Tamannas: Children's Pressure Wins a Floating Bridge and a Safe Route for 140 Students

Tamanna Sultana is an adolescent girl from Hawladar Para in Pratapnagar Union of Ashashuni upazila, Satkhira. People are steadily leaving the 23 villages of this climate-stressed coastal union, and Tamanna has identified that departure itself as the biggest problem for children. In her view, when adults leave, children become unprotected.

Children from Satkhira, Khulna and Bagerhat sat together in Khulna to discuss preparations for the upcoming climate conference. Child representatives from Khulna will also travel to the climate conference to be held in Anatolia, Türkiye. In that discussion, the Tamannas described how climate change is affecting their lives and what initiatives they have taken locally.

Tamanna heads the 'Babui Pakhi' community children's group in Hawladar Para. They have built such neighbourhood- and village-based groups of children and adolescents themselves.

Tamanna studies at United Academy, a secondary school in the Pratapnagar area. The number of students at the school is falling day by day. In the 2026 SSC examinations, only 26 of 62 candidates passed. Yet in 2023 no one failed, and in 2025, 15 students failed.

In 2021–22, about 14 percent of students in Pratapnagar dropped out. Among those who dropped out, boys outnumber girls. Boys leave in the month of Kartik to work in brick kilns; even when they return in Boishakh after the work ends, the school does not take them back, so they cannot sit the annual examinations either.

A 2024 study by the International Labour Organization (ILO), titled 'Health Risks of Child Labour in Bangladesh's Brick Kilns', found that before joining brick-kiln work, about 80 percent of urban children and about 84 percent of rural children attended school regularly. During the brick-kiln season, reserved buses travel from various upazilas of Satkhira to at least 10 districts, and brokers of kiln owners take children to work by giving their families money in advance.

According to the adolescent girls, when fathers and uncles leave far away in search of work, girls are married off, and this child marriage is the main reason they drop out of school. Even if someone wants to return to school after marriage, the schools do not take them back, although married boys face no barrier to studying.

The children's most talked-about initiative in Pratapnagar is the floating bridge. The road from Hawladar Para to school and market was destroyed by riverbank erosion and turned into a canal. When the bamboo bridge over it became shaky, several children fell into the water with their books and notebooks. The children then went in a group to the Union Parishad, and it was under their pressure that the floating bridge was built. About 140 students have gained a safe route to school from it, and adults have benefited too.

On their list of local needs, the children placed safe water in every neighbourhood — rainwater harvesting and salt-free water — a safe space for children's mental health and play, and embankment maintenance and child-friendly disaster preparedness.

Tamanna says, 'Since we could build the bridge, we will be able to do the other work too. Do not call us a teen gang, call us teen strength; stand beside us if you can.'