Collective Lens: Photography for Social Change

This is a story about Buriganga, a river that flows through Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, but one with huge implications internationally. Because historically Buriganga has been a hub of commercial activities, it has always been busy, vibrant and full of life, but never really very clean. Yet the level of environmental degradation it has been subjected to in recent years is most astonishing.

South Asia is one of the regions most complicated by the globalization phenomenon. Rapid growth and enormous technological progress in past two decades has brought significant wealth and opened doors of opportunities in developing countries, but only to a select few in urban centers. In turn, it has also brought indescribable suffering and humiliation for much larger populations that live either in rural areas or worse, in under-served slums of mega cities within the same countries.