by Sams Arefin
There is a particular pride in handing a neighbour something you grew yourself. Morzina Bibi knows this well. She grew up with it, in Rakhine Province, where her family cultivated crops, raised cattle, and never once had to buy vegetables because everyone around them did the same. Food was not a transaction. It moved between houses as a matter of course, carried in baskets, given without ceremony.
That life ended in the last months of 2016. When the threat of violence made staying impossible, Morzina and her husband Juhar crossed the Naf River into Bangladesh with a small amount of money and almost no certainty about what came next. Their extended family stayed behind, unconvinced. The couple came alone, with their neighbours, into a country that was not theirs.
“We were afraid,” she says simply. “All the people around us were afraid. We discussed what we would do if something happened. My husband decided we would go.”
Today, Morzina is 25 years old and lives in Camp 8 East with Juhar and their three children, aged 13, 10, and 5. Juhar earns what he can as a daily labourer at a market outside the camp. For years that was the only income. Then, in 2025, a World Vision volunteer visited their household.
The visit was not about a garden. It began with Morzina’s second child, who was identified for case management support. Over weeks of follow-up and referral, the child recovered. But the visit opened something else. The volunteer told Morzina about the Positive Parenting Group sessions being run out of the Peacock Centre, a programme under the GFFO-funded JF-FS-&CPiE project. Once a week, for three months.
“I was struggling to feed my children properly,” Morzina says. “I was deeply worried. I decided to attend.” Her husband encouraged her to go regularly and she did.
“I did not know much before about childcare, the impact of love and affection, or nutritious food. I learned everything from World Vision. Showing love to children is very important. It helps them grow confidently.”
The sessions covered topics like child protection, nutrition, hygiene, maternal care, and child marriage. They also covered gardening. That was the part that stayed with Morzina most. She had space around her shelter. She had grown things before. What she did not have, she thought, was viable soil.
“I was afraid vegetables would not grow well here because of soil infertility and lack of water,” she says. “But through the sessions, I learned that if you maintain the area properly and water the plants regularly, it is possible. You can consume nutritious food and also sell what remains.”
JF_FS&CPiE project provided her with a gardening kit: seeds of Bitter Gourd, Bottle Gourd, Indian Spinach, Yard Long Bean, Sweet Gourd, and Sponge Gourd, along with organic compost, vermicompost, a watering can and grow bags. Her daughter received a moringa sapling from the centre.
She planted. She watered. The garden grew.
By selling moringa pods and leaves alone, Morzina earns between 400 and 600 Taka. The vegetables from the rest of the garden go first to her family’s table. Whatever remains, she sells or shares. When World Vision provided a second round of seeds, she expanded the plot. She is now working on a larger, more systematic garden. She plans to collect seeds from this season’s harvest and preserve them for the next year, then share what she has with her neighbours.
The food rations do not include leafy greens. The garden fills that gap. Her children eat fresh vegetables now, grown ten steps from where they sleep.
“My nearby neighbours, especially women, come to me to learn how I grow vegetables and what techniques I use.”
Morzina is now a volunteer with Mukti Cox’s Bazar and holds membership in the Positive Parents Group. The woman who came to Bangladesh with little money and no certainty is the one her neighbours now come to, asking about soil and season and technique.
In Rakhine, she says, everyone grew their own food, no one needed to buy it. Vegetables moved between houses without ceremony. It was simply what people did.
In Camp 8 East something like that is beginning again.
This story was produced under the GFFO-funded JF-FS-&CPiE project implemented by World Vision Bangladesh.