Young volunteers repair damaged road

A group youths in Bamankhan village of Jhalakathi Sadar upazila repaired about one kilometer of a damaged dirt road used by three villages.

As many as fifteen young men from the village started the restoration work on Saturday morning with the target to finish the work in a couple of days.

The dirt road connects Bamankhan, Bamankathi and Aoukhira villages under Sadar and Rajapur upazilas in Jhalakathi.

Floods in the past few years inflicted damage on the road, but the most damage it sustained was during the super cyclone Amphan that lashed coastal districts with ferocious wind and rain last month, said Shafiqul Islam, one of the volunteers who took part in the restoration of the road in their village.

The villagers -- especially school students, women and the elderly -- had not been able to use the road during the monsoon as it often went under water after rain, he also said.  

Abul Kalam, a senior citizen of Bamankhan village, said the villagers need the road to get to the local market and the upazila headquarters. "We are highly pleased that our young men have restored the road. Now we'll be able to use it without much difficulty."

Mahmud, another youth who volunteered for the work, said, "It felt good to be able to do such a good deed for the villagers. With this we also proved that when there is a will, youths can do a lot for the community."

Before the volunteers took the restoration work of the road on their own shoulders, residents of the village on numerous occasions petitioned the members and chairmen of local union parishads concerned, urging repair of the damaged road. But their requests were not entertained, said a resident.

However, Shajahan Khan, a member of Suktagar Union Parishad in Rajapur upazila, claimed, "We made an attempt to repair the road some days ago, but we could not do the work due to some problems that arose there regarding the measurement of the road."

"I am thankful to the youth who repaired the road with their own effort," He added.