Soriya Banu, a Community Correspondent with Video Volunteers, is the only earning member of her family of four and is employed at a local NGO where she conducts First Aid Training and works on health care literacy and access. Soriya uses her tools as a Community Correspondent to bring impact to issues ranging from road conditions and water contamination, from…

Soriya Banu

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Video Volunteers community correspondent Soriya Banu reports from Malda district of West Bengal. Soriya has already made four videos in the past highlighting the problem of soil erosion near Malda's Purba Golkatola village, where the river Ganga flows through.

Villagers say that soil erosion has been happening for the last 50 years or so, and has gobbled up about three acres of land. Farmers used to grow vegetables, pulses, rice etc. on the land that eroded. Slowly they are left with no land and no livelihood. Many have migrated to other areas in search of opportunities. Despite all this, the local government has neither provided any compensation to the affected villagers nor have they taken any concrete action to prevent the erosion of soil.

The problem could be traced back to the construction of eight dams on the banks of river Ganga and how it started showing its ill-effects by eroding the soil holding it together.

If the government does not constitute an action plan to cease soil erosion, villagers of Malda, West Bengal would have no land left to call their own.