TITLE: Survivor-Survived against all the odds

In Bangladesh, the nomadic community, known as Bede community is a unique social group of people with distinctive culture and heritage. The Bede used to live, travel, and earn their living on the river. Nowadays this scenario cannot be traced much.
This photo series represents the story of a pregnant Bede woman named Dulary who already had four children when she gave birth to her fifth child and it’s a boy. In Bede community, during their pregnancy the traditional midwives of the society always guide them. They never visit doctors unless it becomes crucial. It is a tradition of Bede community that children take birth with the help of the traditional midwives.
Unlike conventional society, BEDE community is not male-dominated. Household chores are not labeled as “womanly” work, and most importantly, their men take care of their pregnant women.
When someone has labor pain, a group of Bede women usually leaves their work and stays home to support the pregnant woman. Also, the other groups who go to work share their earning with the women who stay home. Such a wonderful tradition and bonding they share which makes them unique.
I have seen Dulary craving for relief from her intolerable pain for long sixteen hours. Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws and it came true for her. Dulary had no support of doctor or medical center in her crucial moments. They entrust to the midwife. Her trust won and she finally gave birth to a healthy baby. She forgot all her pain when she saw her baby. It's not that birth is not painful, it's that women are strong, and motherhood is the happiest feeling in this world.
it’s true that the birth process is unhygienic and different statistics can be shown which will prove that

AUTHOR: Farida Alam (Bangladesh)

Farida Alam's inspiration for photography comes from people and her surroundings. She loves to experience other cultures, meet different people from diverse communities.
She believes in immersion photography and spends months listening, observing and talking with her subjects over the course of a project. Photography has become part of her identity - a force that makes her think, feel and understand human beings and the human condition. Her work on third gender people, “Reflection of dispersed soul”, hidden for years has brought her various international award and recognitions.
Apart from that her other individual works has got her recognitions of various national and international arenas. Recently, Social Documentary Network (SDN) has featured her work Survived Against all the Odds.
Currently, she is working with different social groups that are deprived of basic human needs. However, at the same time she is exploring their traditional lifestyle and learning from it.
Farida has completed basic and foundation courses from “Pathshala South Asian Media Institute “. Later on, she also participated in a documentary photography course of Counter Photo, another renowned photography institute of Bangladesh.
Currently, she is pursuing Diploma in photography from Alliance Francaise de Dhaka. Also, she is a lifetime member of “Bangladesh Photographic Society (BPS)”.