We spent our last few weeks in Afjalpur making sure we had met all of the targets laid out in our day-to-day plan and compiling a handover folder so that the next ICS volunteers know every detail of the work we have done.

Whilst our programme followed the ethos of sharing skills, knowledge and good practice, there were a few things that we bought to make a lasting impact on the community. Firstly, we were able to use some of our remaining budget to carry out a vaccination camp for 'badla' (or 'black quarter' in English) - an infectious disease which is particularly threatening to cattle at this time of year.

Playing in one of the many ponds in Afjalpur, north-west Bangladesh

We also bought a community notice board so that the co-operative members are able to find out times of meetings. This will save them a lot of time and energy in the future as the 28 members are spread far and wide throughout the village. It will also help to mobilise the members to actively participate in the co-operative and take responsibility for their own meetings long after ICS volunteers have left the village, thus ensuring their own sustainable development.

To further our messages on hygiene, which we had particularly highlighted during our first Community Action Day, we bought soaps, toothbrushes and toothpaste for the students of the community school. In the following days it seemed to become the new craze for children to wander through the village brushing their teeth and it was great to see them clearly taking note of our tooth-brushing and hand-washing messages at a young age. 

After we had finished all of that, squeezed everything into our rucksacks and said our long and tearful goodbyes, we were off to spend our final three days in Dhaka.

A Dhaka University professor gives a talk during the National Level Sharing event

The teams of UK and national volunteers from Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bagerhat and Rangpur came back together to evaluate the programme and prepare for the National Level Sharing event to be held at Dhaka University on our final day.

We made a video (that you can watch at the top of this blog) summing up our wonderful experience and presented this to the audience, which included representatives from the Bangladesh government, our partner organisations and DFID Bangladesh, amongst many others.

The event was an excellent opportunity to share our challenges, as well as successes, with people who will be around to support and monitor the next cycle. It was also testament to how keen DFID and VSO have been to listen to our suggestions and feedback throughout the programme, particularly as this was the pilot year.

As it has recently been announced that another 7000 young people will be volunteering on the International Citizen Service in the next three years, it is really positive that both of these organisations are so willing to make alterations according to the suggestions of young people from the UK and abroad who have participated in the programme.

Now that I have returned to the UK (and have full-access to a computer and an internet connection far faster than I've been used to) I have been able to read back through my blogs and reflect on an incredible three months.

UK and national volunteers at the VSO Bangladesh National Level Sharing event at Dhaka University

My experience was everything I had anticipated in my first entry, yet I certainly wasn't prepared for how real the statistics I had read would become. Listening to the 28 dairy co-operative members speak about the daily struggle of living hand to mouth whilst we conducted our base-line survey at the beginning of our project immediately put things into perspective.

I have since spent three months living alongside people who are affected by the gender inequality, climate change and extreme poverty that I read about in article after article. Moreover, these people have become close friends. It was a busy three months and of course there were difficulties along the way, but it is in overcoming such difficulties that our team was strengthened and the already improved situation of our co-operative members shows how much we achieved.

I have taken a lot from this experience and try as I did to write blogs and reflect on my time in Bangladesh along the way, I know that it will only be in years to come that I am able to really look back at just how much I have learnt from this opportunity.

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Coming together: everyone gathers at the start of the rally.

Organising Community Action Days is an important part of our role here in north-west Bangladesh. They are a great opportunity to bring the whole village together and raise awareness about issues affecting the community. Knowing the importance of gender issues in Bangladesh, we decided as a group during our in-country orientation in January that we should take the opportunity to celebrate International Women's Day (IWD).

Since arriving in our village, the need to raise awareness about women's issues has become even more apparent, witnessing firsthand the effects of early marriage and the extent of female illiteracy in particular.

We decided that our first activity for the day would be a rally through the village to give us a strong collective voice and gather participants along our route. Then, given that feedback from the community after our last Community Action Day was to have more music and dancing, we decided that we would hold a cultural programme showcasing some of Afjalpur's wonderful talent. Within this, we also arranged guest speakers from the local council and BRAC school. To end the day's events, we organised a candlelit ceremony at one of the nearby ponds. After all of this planning, hours of rehearsals and persistent advertising throughout the village, we were finally ready to celebrate the day.

Community participation: a woman holds her IWD sign

Under the relentless sun of a spring afternoon in Bangladesh (if it's this hot in March, I can't begin to imagine the heat of summer!) we began our rally from the centre of the village, joined by over 100 men, women, boys and girls. Shouting messages and carrying signs about women's health, education and rights, we collected an even larger crowd as we went. Everyone was in very high spirits by the time the rally finished at the location of the cultural programme, ready to be entertained by beautiful Bangla singing, dancing and poetry performed by local people.

The performances were intermitted by speeches raising awareness about women's issues and explaining the huge significance of the 400 people in the crowd coming together on IWD. It was incredibly rewarding to see young and old, male and female at the event, as the issues primarily affecting women have repercussions on everyone.

Cultural programme: local musicians play Bangla music

As the cultural programme was coming to a close our final act was a dance by a 16-year-old girl who had been forced into marriage six days before.

Challenging cultural traditions is not an easy or quick process and, as I have mentioned before, such practices are complex and relate to poverty as much as gender inequality. However, being able to raise awareness of these issues, or even just the fact that IWD exists, is a first step and I am grateful to the ICS programme for giving UK and local youth volunteers the freedom and responsibility to arrange Community Action Days according to the issues affecting the local, host community. Giving that newly married young girl a platform to show her strength and belief in women's issues was a poignant moment.

At dusk we held the candlelit ceremony where participants were asked to light a candle as they thought about an inspirational female figure in their life. My mind went back to the girl who had danced on stage moments before, whose life has been dramatically changed without her consent and who is unfortunately representative of millions of young women across the world. For us UK volunteers, the idea of having an early, settled marriage is far removed from our reality, yet here it is a part of everyday life.

The IWD 2012 theme is 'Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures' and whilst our work here is primarily with a dairy co-operative, we hope that through activities such as Community Action Days we will inspire others.

A dairy co-operative member attends to her herd.

We have spent the last few weeks learning about the needs of Afjalpur dairy co-operative members and getting to grips with their livelihoods situation. Amongst many other things, the outcomes of our baseline survey showed how essential it is for all members to receive training.

It is very encouraging to see how such a simple thing for us to arrange can greatly improve the condition of members' livestock and consequently increase the milk production of the co-operative. Yet there is also a lot more that the members are in need of. 

Alongside Dhaka University and Afjalpur Youth Club volunteers, we visited a nearby successful dairy co-operative to learn about their progress and good practice. This visit showed how the enthusiasm and commitment of members has really paid off - they are now benefitting from an increased price for their milk, improved health support for their cattle and access to savings and loan schemes. It also highlighted how a dedicated co-operative that works together towards their vision can improve their economic and social situation, and reaffirmed that this can certainly be achieved in our village.

Co-operative members vote to elect their leaders

On returning to Afjalpur we arranged a meeting with the 26 dairy co-operative members so that we could discuss what being part of a co-operative means and what they each expect of their fellow members. Trust amongst the co-operative was decided to be a key component to their success, so with this in mind, members elected the 'leader' roles, such as chairperson, secretary and treasurer. It was also a good opportunity to speak of any anxieties they may have and talk about the way forward. Meetings will now be held every week, with elected members fulfilling their duties immediately until the co-operative becomes officially registered, when all members will elect the roles again.

We have also held a Community Action Day since my last blog entry. Having spent time learning about the needs of the village, our aims for the day were to spread messages about the importance of hand-washing and good cow fodder, as well as furthering our relationship with the community. Working with Afjalpur Youth Club volunteers and Dhaka University students, we began advertising the event to ensure that we had enough publicity and would mobilise as many people from the community to join with us as possible. We then spent several hours making posters, t-shirts and decorations for the day. Everyone was keen to join in, particularly the children, and the next day our preparations paid off as we had an excellent turnout.

ICS volunteers with local women at the first Community Action Day

The day's activities included a drawing competition, ball games and a biscuit race, intermitted by a talk from our international VSO volunteer, a hand-washing demonstration and a special guest singer.

Already we are approaching the mid-point of our time in Bangladesh and, though we have made excellent progress in our work with the dairy co-operative, we have plenty more planned for the next six weeks. In a few days we will travel south to Dhaka to reunite with the rest of the UK and national volunteers. We will be reporting back on our activities so far and evaluating the outcomes so that we are able to learn from each other's hard work. Then we will return to our communities for the second half of our stay and implement our plans. One of the first things on our agenda in the North-West is a second Community Action Day in celebration of International Women’s Day on 8^th March. This is a particularly important day in Afjalpur as raising awareness of issues such as girls' education and early marriage is vital in attaining equality and developing a model village.

We spent the first 11 days of our trip to Bangladesh in the capital city of Dhaka which, though dusty and busy, is full of wonderful bright colours. After a day of rest at the guesthouse and a long journey in a hectic traffic jam (they really are as severe as everyone had warned), we eventually made it to our first stop: the Liberation Museum. Here we learnt about Bangladesh's War of Independence and its struggle against West Pakistan.

After a little more sightseeing and some interesting visits to local development projects, we began our training from Dhaka University's Centre for Disaster and Vulnerability Studies. There are eight UK volunteers in the Bangladesh team and we are divided into three areas to co-ordinate with VSO Bangladesh's 'model village' concept. This work plan seeks to establish good practice in each of the villages and to then be able to apply these to other rural areas of Bangladesh. During the training we learnt about the practical development tools we could use to map good practice and assist us in designing our projects. We also heard about the activities of previous ICS volunteers in the villages so that we could decide how best to continue.

The Liberation War Museum, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Picture: taylorandayumi/Flickr

Joining us on our placements are students from Dhaka University and local youth volunteers from each village, which makes for a great combination of backgrounds and perspectives. The focus of each of the projects varies, but I am in the north-west and working closely with the youth club to establish a successful dairy farming co-operative.

We received a very warm welcome from the whole village on arrival and were presented with flowers and led to our host home. After only a few days we have already made our day-to-day work plan and visited service-providing agencies, such as the local agriculture department.

We are currently conducting a baseline survey of the co-operative members and also have a Community Action Day coming up that we need to organise and prepare for - so the team are being kept very busy. Having said that, life has a very gentle pace here, with people slowly passing by on their bicycles and we are still managing to find the time to play some essential games of cricket!

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This month, I shall be leaving London to work on a dairy farming and livelihoods project in Bangladesh as part of the International Citizen Service (ICS), a youth volunteering programme funded by DFID.

A woman fishes for shrimp in Khulna, Bangladesh. Picture: Radef Anwar/DFID

Having filled in all the forms, completed the three-day training and received the necessary immunisations, the preparations for my trip are well underway. Naturally, my curiosity about what life will be like in a rural village in north-west Bangladesh has led me to trawl the internet, meticulously reading many websites, articles and blogs. What I have learnt is that there are certain aspects of my trip that I am just unable to prepare for - the vast population will surely be the first to strike me on arrival in Dhaka - yet this research has also served as a pleasing reminder about why I first applied to take part in the ICS.

During the three-month project, my knowledge on dairy farming will undoubtedly improve, but working alongside young people of a different culture, faith and viewpoint will also allow for a greater understanding of a range of development issues.

The ICS, in bringing together young people to work on a development project, brings an opportunity to share skills and increase awareness of wider problems affecting communities. For example, whilst there are many shocking statistics about Bangladesh's extreme poverty and hazardous geography, it is facts concerning women and girls that I, as a young British female, have been most taken aback by.

In being able to compare my own situation with many women of a similar age in Bangladesh, issues such as child marriage and its repercussions become a distinct reality. A report from UNICEF in 2010 found that 66% of girls in Bangladesh marry before they are 18 years old, despite it being illegal. Working with local young people and living with a host-family in a rural community will most likely be a huge eye-opener to such practices.

Early marriage is as linked to poverty and gender inequality as it is to culture and religion, and can have serious effects onwomen's health and education, directly obstructing several of the Millennium Development Goals which the ICS aims to help achieve. Combining the efforts of young people is a unique and invaluable way to empower youth and raise awareness of development challenges, and this does not stop when returning to the UK.

The idea behind ICS is to share what I have learned and encourage others to join the fight against global poverty long after leaving Bangladesh, as mobilizing others to act on injustice and inequality is a powerful, relevant and necessary resource both nationally and internationally.