DHAKA: Growing up in a poor, densely populated neighborhood of a southern Bangladeshi city, Josna Begum has for most of her life lived in conditions where even access to clean water was rare.

As climate change-related heatwaves and floods took an increasing toll in recent years, she joined a women’s community project in 2018 and soon rose to lead it — helping make Hatkhola, the slum area where she lives in Barisal city, a safer and healthier place — and support other women in escaping poverty.

“My locality is one of the most underprivileged areas of Barisal city. Here, people are mostly unaware of their rights and responsibilities,” Josna told Arab News.

“Women didn’t have a voice. We had no chance to share our opinions at home, in the community, or in any official space. We wanted to unite so we could solve our issues ourselves.”

A mother of three, Josna, 44, has been volunteering with the Women’s Squad — an all-women team established by the Bangladesh Red Crescent and British Red Cross in slum areas of Barisal. She currently serves as the team’s leader in the Hatkhola locality.

“We build awareness about climate change impacts like untimely heavy rain, drought, heatwaves, repeated cyclones, floods. We encourage people to plant more trees to help reduce the effects of climate change. We also make people aware of the importance of keeping the canals clean so they can hold enough water during heavy rainfall,” she said.

“We work to keep the environment clean where we live. To motivate the community, all 23 members of our women’s squad do the drainage cleaning tasks ourselves. We raise awareness about the effects of waterlogging, which causes diseases like dengue, malaria.”

Josna initially faced objections from her husband, a daily-wage worker, but this changed when he saw the effects of her work.

The Women’s Squad has managed to obtain a submersible water pump from the Red Crescent, and convinced local authorities to repair five tube wells, securing clean water for over 700 families, who did not have access before.

They have also persuaded local officials to repair a 106-meter-long drainage system, helping prevent waterlogging during the rain season, and are now focused on improving sanitation in the neighborhood that until recently had no proper bathrooms or toilets.

“Now, seeing my success, all family members are happy and encouraging me to keep going,” Josna said.

“With support from the Red Crescent Society, we secured two bathrooms, and just weeks ago, we coordinated the construction of another toilet with the help of a local NGO. This new facility is fully equipped, including features to accommodate people with disabilities.”

To uplift the community, the women also help households plant trees and grow vegetables on whatever small plots of land they have. With support from NGOs, they organize vocational training for those interested in learning to drive, sew, perform basic electrical work, or service mobile phones.

Moly Begum, another member of the Women’s Squad, who leads the team in Barisal’s Stadium Colony area, is proud of the effect their engagement has in changing not only the quality of life, but also the social standing of women.

“I didn’t have any recognition in the family and society. Nobody listened to my words. I thought, if I could get engaged with some social work, people would know me in the community, and I would be able to serve them,” she said.

“My area is an underprivileged poor area. There are many distressed women in my community. Violence against women and children was very common here ... That’s why I got involved with the Women’s Squad.”

Over the past seven years, much of what she hoped to achieve has materialized or borne fruit, as her team members went door-to-door with their advocacy and helped organize various forms of support from NGOs and local authorities.

They have been intervening in incidents of domestic violence or child marriage, as they also tried to make sure more children in the marginalized community would get access to education, while women gain some financial independence.

“The members of the Women’s Squad approached every house in the community. We encouraged the guardians to send their children to school. We convinced them that every child is equal, whether a boy or a girl,” Moly told Arab News.

“Women are now engaged in small-scale income-generating activities. Many in my community are now running tea stalls, clothing shops, selling pickles, cakes. All these things happened due to our Women’s Squad’s work.”

KYIV: Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s new prime minister, represents a generation of young Ukrainian politicians who have steered their country through the turmoil of war.

The 39-year-old, who was appointed economy minister just months before the Kremlin launched its full-scale assault in February 2022, shot to international prominence this year when she championed a vital economic accord between Kyiv and Washington.

“It is a great honor for me to lead the Government of Ukraine today,” Svyrydenko said on social media, adding that “war leaves no room for delay. We must act swiftly and decisively.”

Svyrydenko led fraught negotiations around a minerals and investment agreement with the United States that nearly derailed ties between Kyiv and its most important military ally.

The deal was central to a disastrous televised spat between Zelensky and US President Donald Trump in February 2025.

Not long after, Svyrydenko traveled to Washington to finalize an agreement that many Ukrainians hoped would placate Trump by giving him a sellable victory and ensure more critical US support for Kyiv.

“She was the key and the only person leading these negotiations. She managed to prevent them from unraveling,” said Tymofiy Mylovanov, a former economy minister who worked with Svyrydenko.

She earned the respect of US partners during the negotiations, according to several analysts, including Mylovanov, who described Svyrydenko as preferring a level-headed, non-confrontational approach in politics.

Svyrydenko is also viewed as loyal to the powerful head of Zelensky’s office, Andriy Yermak, with some seeing her nomination as another attempt from the presidency to consolidate power.

She is taking the helm at a precarious moment, in a country exhausted by more than three years of war and dependent on its foreign allies for survival.

The role of prime minister does not typically include a say on military strategy or frontline operations, where Zelensky and his military chiefs call the shots.

Yet Svyrydenko is central to a young generation of Ukrainian leaders, like Zelensky, who have guided the country through the Russian invasion and contrast starkly with the Soviet-styled elites that dominate in Russia.

She was not yet 30 when the Kremlin helped foment a violent overthrow of authorities in eastern Ukraine, as popular protests demanded that Kyiv pursue closer integration with Europe.

And her native region of Chernigiv, which borders Russia and its war ally Belarus, was briefly occupied at the start of the invasion launched in February 2022.

Despite being ravaged and facing a potentially crippling recession, she kept Ukraine’s economy afloat during the war, including by pushing for some businesses to have exemptions from key staff being mobilized into the armed forces.

Keeping businesses going will be “her legacy as the wartime economy minister,” Andy Hunder, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, told AFP.

“Svyrydenko is emblematic of the Ukrainian people’s resilience,” then-US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo wrote of her in Time Magazine in 2023.

Svyrydenko, who mostly avoids the press, moved through the ranks of government quickly after graduating with honors from the National University of Trade and Economics and a brief spell in the private sector.

She held a variety of posts in her native Chernigiv region before being appointed by presidential decree as deputy head of the president’s office in 2020.

Less than a year later, she became deputy prime minister and economy minister.

Svyrydenko has said that civil service was a part of her life since childhood, as both her parents worked in government.

“I saw how they devoted themselves to serving the community, how their hometown and its improvement were their core values,” she recently told Ukrainian media.