Rayerbazar Reimagined: From Waste to Wellness
Rayerbazar, Dhaka, Bangladesh | Rayerbazar Reimagined: From Waste to Wellness - Eco Champions | 2025
Nomoskar!
We are the Eco Champions, a youth-led movement committed to transforming Rayerbazar into a cleaner, greener community. Building on our successful 2024 campaign that reached over 5.4 million people through media coverage, we continued our mission in 2025 to deepen our focus on the critical connection between waste management and dengue prevention.
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18 to 24 years old
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The Right-Sized Problem
Rayerbazar continues to face unhealthy living conditions due to poor waste management. Overflowing bins, plastic pollution, and unmanaged solid waste create breeding grounds for Aedes mosquitoes, making the area vulnerable to dengue. Despite our 2024 success in shifting mindsets, sustained action was needed to address the urgent health crisis affecting families across our neighbourhood.
What We Did
Over eight months, we expanded our campaign reach, mobilizing over 500 volunteers and engaging 40,000+ people through strategic partnerships and community-led action.
Offline Impact
Home Visits and Courtyard Sessions – Conducted door-to-door outreach covering more than 1,000 households, educating families on proper waste disposal and eliminating mosquito breeding sites.
Theatre for Development (TfD) – Mobilized 35 TfD members to bring waste and dengue issues to life through storytelling and performance, making complex health messages accessible for hundreds of residents.
School Awareness Campaigns – Hosted interactive sessions in primary and secondary schools, educating students about the waste-dengue connection.
Community Cleanliness Drives – Led by trained adolescents with safety equipment, mobilized 500+ volunteers to clean streets and demonstrate safe waste-handling practices.
Strategic Collaboration Meetings – Coordinated with Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Zone-5 officials and partner NGOs to ensure sustainable institutional support.
Online & Media Impact
Social Media Reach – Campaign messages reached 150,000 people through digital platforms.
Television Coverage – Featured on Rajdhani Television, reaching audiences outside the campaign area.
Media Partnership – Rajdhani Television committed to ongoing partnership for future initiatives.
Campaign Impact
One of our most profound successes was witnessing adolescents transform their learning into real-life action. Trained youth confidently led cleanliness drives in densely populated neighborhoods, with residents gradually joining the clean-up. One participant shared: "Today we felt that we can really change our community if we work together."
The Assistant Health Officer from DNCC Zone-5 highly appreciated SHIFT activities and expressed strong interest in ongoing collaboration. A defining success was helping the community understand that improper waste disposal contributes to mosquito breeding and dengue spread, empowering residents to protect both environmental and health safety simultaneously.
What’s Next?
We're committed to long-term transformation by scaling waste segregation initiatives, expanding partnerships for eco-infrastructure, and continuing collaboration with DNCC and media partners for citywide impact.
This story was lovingly curated by the SHIFT team with the help of Claude (Anthropic) based on submitted source materials from our Fun Adults and Shifters.
