Change Makers: UNSTOPPABLE

In the villages of Lalmonirhat's Aditmari upazila the sight of a jolly, very elderly woman moving about house to house on a bicycle, from morning into the afternoon, isn't unusual. Everybody knows that nonagenarian Jahiron Bewa, who the villagers refer to as “Banglar Nani (Grandmother of Bangladesh)” keeps herself busy providing sick villagers across the upazila with healthcare advice, just as she has done for the last 44 years.

“I only provide treatment for common ailments,” says the widow of Sayed Ali who hails from Taluk Dulali village in Aditmari's Bhelabari union.

“For major diseases I recommend going to hospital and sometimes I help them get there.”

Jahiron completed a six-month training course in healthcare and family planning in 1973, following which she earned a basic wage as a village health worker for the next decade.

After that she continued on her own. “I was used to visiting patients. I never gave up the habit,” she says.

Jahiron Bewa hands out some medicines to a villager in Taluk Dulali of Lalmonirhat recently. Apart from giving free medical advice, she also distributes free medicines for common ailments like fever and headache to poor patients. Photo: Star

“I've seen her cycling around this area every day for several decades,” says Azizul Islam, 68, a farmer from Haziganj village. “She never takes a fee for her visits, charging only market prices for medicines; and sometimes for the poorest villagers she supplies medicine free-of-cost too.”

“She isn't a doctor,” says Manowara Bewa, 67, from Chandonpat village, “but she has excellent experience and by following her advice for general diseases we are sure to be cured.”

Expectant mother Khadiza Begum, 42, from Dulali village, is equally impressed with Jahiron's care. “She never takes any fee for a prenatal consultation,” says Khadiza, “and she has more experience in child deliveries than most.”

Jahiron, who studied up to class three at her parental home in Tangail, says she still visits around 60 homes in up to eight villages per day.

“I cover around 30 villages in total each month,” she says, “and I earn about Tk 150 per day from medicine sales.”

Her grandson Siddique Ali, 49, admits that he feels nervous as his grandmother ventures off on her own with her bicycle each morning. But her health is thus far exemplary. “She still has all her teeth,” says Siddique.

“She is physically energetic. But her main asset is her smiling face.

“I haven't suffered any kind of disease for the last 50 years,” says ever-determined Jahiron, demonstrating the smile for which she is renowned.

According to her youngest son Torab Ali, 58, the family has some farmland and is not in dire economic need. Jahiron doesn't have to work.

“I have requested my mother many times not to continue but she never takes heed,” he says.

“She says her work isn't only about her. She says it is work for the welfare of society and that everybody should strive for that.”

Jahiron had three sons and two daughters. Her eldest son Danes Ali passed away eight years ago at the age of 66 and six years ago she lost her husband. Jahiron's dream is as simple as a bicycle wheel turning: to provide healthcare services to the villagers in Aditmara until her final breath.