A flame that changed Rahima's life 

In Sirajganj's flood-prone landscape, where rivers redraw boundaries almost every year, 32-year-old Rahima Begum has grown used to uncertainty. What she never quite managed to get used to was how quickly that uncertainty entered her kitchen.

Repeated floods had damaged her family's crops, tightening the already fragile income from her husband's small-scale farming and cattle rearing. On some days, even planning the next meal felt like a calculation against rising prices and falling harvests.

Cooking was another daily struggle. Firewood, their primary fuel, was expensive and time-consuming to gather. The smoke from traditional stoves often lingered inside their small home, triggering coughing fits and breathing difficulties for her children and elderly relatives. "It felt like we were paying twice—once with money and again with health," Rahima recalled.

The turning point came when her household was selected for a biogas digester under City Bank's "Project Green Flame," a CSR initiative implemented in partnership with development organisations. The system allows rural families to convert livestock waste into clean cooking gas, while also producing organic fertiliser as a by-product.

The change, Rahima says, was immediate and practical. The kitchen no longer filled with smoke, and the daily search for firewood came to an end. "Now I cook with gas from our own cattle waste. It feels like we have brought something modern into our home without leaving the village," she said.

What began as a solution for cooking fuel soon became a small economic shift. With reduced fuel expenses, the family found breathing space in their monthly budget. Even more importantly, the organic fertiliser produced by the digester opened a new income stream. The family began selling surplus bio-slurry, turning waste into value.

"With the extra savings and income, I enrolled my daughter in coaching classes and started saving money every month," Rahima said, describing changes that would have felt impossible just a few years ago.

According to City Bank, the initiative is designed to strengthen sustainable livelihoods in climate-vulnerable regions such as Sirajganj and Bogura, with a particular focus on empowering women. The project also explores a bio-slurry buy-back model to create additional income opportunities for rural households, especially for women and young people.

More broadly, the bank's CSR and ESG efforts have been expanding into areas such as youth empowerment, women's participation, and climate resilience, through collaborations with organisations including UNICEF and Friendship Bangladesh.

For Rahima, however, these broader strategies are felt in quieter ways—on a stove that no longer smokes, in a kitchen that no longer feels suffocating, and in a household budget that finally leaves room for hope.