With love, from Bangladesh- Sending children’s clothes to Cox’s Bazar

An estimated 507,000 people are now living on the border of Bangladesh and Myanmar, and more than half of them are children. Most of them have arrived with zero possessions, apart from the clothes they wore while making the long and dangerous journey.

Children as young as a day old have travelled for days. As is the case with any humanitarian crisis, whatever cash that families manage to arrive with are exchanged to buy dry food and water- needs that become more urgent than a new set of clothes on their backs.

Here in Cox’s Bazar, thousands of clean sets of clothes for children are needed. Children continue to arrive, sick and injured. Some have no clothes while others are spending days wearing the same ones. They are spending nights in informal settlements, sleeping on cold, and sometimes wet mud floors. Children are falling sick. Many are suffering from pneumonia, cold and various skin diseases.

Something had to be done. We decided to reach out for support.

Local garment manufacturers and others have responded to our call for help. To date, a truck filled with clothes for 38,000 children have reached Cox’s Bazar. Distributions start early every morning, with our staff in pink vests reaching out to children living in some of the remotest settlements. Bangladesh is the second largest garments exporter in the world, and surely, there is more that we can do. As the word continues to spread, individuals and organisations have been constantly stepping up to donate clothes and other goods.

At the time of a humanitarian crisis, time and time again, it is children who are far more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, and girls in particular are at greater risk of sexual violence. Every day we are reaching more children, clothing them with dignity and love, and providing safe spaces for them to heal and grow.

We are scaling up our humanitarian assistance activities every day, focusing on maternal and child health, water, sanitation and hygiene and keeping children safe. Please visit response.brac.net to donate and follow our work.