With their focus on Humanitarian Engineering, ENHANCE partners at the University of Dhaka have met the challenges posed by the 2020 global pandemic with innovation, compassion and action.

In February 2019, DU hosted a two day long Practice-dialogue Workshop during which 75 participants, including 12 foreign delegates identified the major humanitarian engineering challenges to Bangladesh as follows: climate change, environmental pollution, public health, natural disaster, waste management and food safety.

A year on from that, we were facing the outbreak of COVID-19 – which has created and exacerbated humanitarian challenges worldwide. In Bangladesh all educational institutes have been shut down since March 2020. Many people are suffering from mental illness during lockdown. This a great humanitarian challenge: to improve people’s mental health and engage students in their study and research. The ENHANCE partner group in DU initiated community based activities including preparation of hand sanitizer and distribution to the community, creating awareness about social distancing, wearing masks and washing hands, helping under privileged people by giving food hampers and finally arranging online seminars for students and young faculty members. Most of the topics for the online seminars were related to COVID-19 including

· Strategic directions COVID-19 and Research,

· Overview of Disinfectants,

· Combat Covid-19 Changing Life Style and food,

· Life in Covid-19 Pandemic,

· COVID-19 Pandemic: Transmission, Diagnosis, Treatments & Coping Strategies for Different Types of Patient,

· COVID-19 Testing in Pandemic Management and the Race for an Effective Vaccine,

· The Role of Women during the Covid-19 Pandemic,

· COVID-19: Virus and Vaccine.

Most of these topics also contribute to the climate change issues and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and were attended by students, faculty members, Professors, researchers, policy makers and other stakeholders. DU ENHANCE partners also arranged two virtual seminars on Quality and Quantity Challenges for Sustainable Groundwater Management in Bangladesh and Sustainable water Management in Developing Countries and A Case Study of Bangladesh during pandemic as an outcome of the work based on earlier identified challenges.