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In early June, a heavy cushion of wet air hangs over the isolated backwaters of Chalan Beel in northwestern Bangladesh, signaling the start of the seasonal, torrential monsoons. As the skies darken, Ratna Khatun and her cousins Shakila and Rupali file up a plank and into a sheltered deckhouse, several other enthusiastic children scurrying behind. The girls take their seats in the front row, which has been reserved for the most studious.

Bejeweled with bright eyes, dangling earrings and broad smiles, the girls’ aspirations take flight in this rainproof berthing with an arched wooden ceiling and bamboo-slatted walls; hinged windows along the sides are propped open for air and light. A blackboard and large computer screen face the passengers at the front of the cabin. Once all 30 or so students are seated at their desks, the transport rocks slightly from side to side before settling into its journey. It is a floating classroom, and six days a week, it plies the flooded canals that define Chalan Beel’s schoolyard for up to five months out of the year.

Ten-year-old Ratna taught her parents and grandmother how to write their names and count. Armed with this knowledge, her grandmother is no longer cheated when she sells crystallized date sugar at the market. With her profits, she bought Ratna a goat, and—after borrowing a neighbor’s goat—Ratna now has a family of her own to tend. But her dreams don’t stop there. “I get medicine from the boats. It helps us when we are sick. That’s why I want to be a doctor, like the doctor in the healthcare boat. I want to help my village people during disaster.”

When architect Mohammed Rezwan founded the nonprofit Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, which means self-reliance, he envisioned the river ecology of Chalan Beel as a communications network. He has transformed the waterways into pathways for information, education and technology, insisting that, “If the children cannot come to the school for lack of transportation, then the school should come to them.''

Shidhulai operates a 54-vessel fleet of floating schools, libraries, and healthcare and training centers—with Internet access where there are mobile networks—serving close to 90,000 families. These refurbished country boats are distinguishable by photovoltaic panels cobbled along the roof that power laptops and other equipment. In the evenings, the solar power accommodates literacy classes for the parents and seniors. There is also instruction on micro-enterprise development, human rights and climate change, attended by business owners and mothers with young families, both in multimedia technology boats and on the shores.

Bangladesh has the densest rural population in the world (1,209 people per square km.) and 52 percent of Bangladeshis have no electricity. Located in the world’s largest delta, it occupies an area about the size of Iowa and has half the population of the entire US. Annual monsoons flood up to a third of the land, and cyclones twice the size of Bangladesh can swirl up from the Bay of Bengal and swallow hundreds of thousands of people in one roiling muddy swoop. Waterborne diseases, commercial pesticide pollution and deforestation are common. But Shidhulai is making them uncommon, educating farmers about sustainable agriculture, biodiversity, healthcare and human rights. Rehana Khatun, a farmer in Chalan Beel, is pleased with these changes. “I’ve learned environmentally friendly agricultural practice on this boat and I don’t use pesticide anymore. It has helped me get a better income.”

“The uniqueness of our project is the simplicity: Build/convert a boat, equip it with books and computers, power it with solar energy, and bring it to communities through the waterways,” Rezwan explains. With a central focus on access to education, Shidhulai’s elegant model is , which (to borrow an idea by Wendell Berry) means solving multiple problems at once. An educated woman can climb out of deep poverty, share in important decisions, improve personal health, and live in a more harmonious relationship with others and the environment. Afroza Khatun, a Shidhulai student, does not take this access for granted. “The women of our country face different types of barriers: social, religious and family. This is the main reason we cannot get education and training and we cannot make ourselves self-reliant. After this library came to our village, we started to believe in ourselves and we are able to overcome all the barriers.”

The floating campus travels the delta’s rivers and wetlands, covering more than 300 miles of planned routes to avoid severe weather. The PV modules charge a waterproof battery bank onboard through a charge controller, preventing the batteries from being over-charged or deep-discharged. Shidhulai shares surplus energy with families, loaning tea box-sized batteries that work with LED lamps for use after dark. This affords people more time to read, study and pursue enterprise that can boost a family’s income, such as sewing and basketry. Each battery holds a week’s supply of power and does double duty as a cellphone recharger.

In 2007, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) awarded Shidhulai the Sasakawa Prize, lauding their innovative strategies to adapt to and mitigate climate change—which, for the most part, they didn’t create. Seventy-five percent of accumulated greenhouse gases are generated by wealthy countries, where only 20 percent of the world’s people live. The average Bangladeshi consumes just one one-hundredth the amount of commercial energy of the average American. Shidhulai’s low-cost, low-carbon project completely leapfrogs last-century, fossil fuel-dependent infrastructure. The nonprofit is also working to convert boats into climate shelters to accommodate victims in areas where there is massive erosion or flooding. A good thing too; as sea levels rise, 17 percent of Bangladesh’s land is expected to disappear by 2050.

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