In 2019, when her youngest daughter Maisha was one year old, a Community Health Promoter (CHP) from Max Foundation visited Hasi Akter’s household in Purba Hethalia village, Kalikapur Union, Patuakhali District, Bangladesh, and identified Maisha as stunted. Hasi, 34, was raising three daughters alone after her husband left the household following Maisha’s birth. The CHP explained that Maisha’s growth could improve with better nutrition and hygiene practices, and encouraged Hasi to attend Courtyard sessions — community meetings focused on nutrition and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH). She started attending regularly. 

The sessions introduced her to homestead gardening as a practical way to improve what her family ate. She started small, growing vegetables on the land around her home. Over the following years, the garden expanded. She now grows pumpkin, wax gourd, bitter gourd, papaya, Malabar spinach, capsicum, lady’s finger, and bath sponge. She has added a small poultry unit — three hens and two ducks — selling eggs and surplus poultry for additional income. “With the idea of a homestead garden, I can meet my family’s nutritional needs,” Hasi said. “Even I can earn some extra money by selling eggs and hens.” The garden now meets most of the family’s vegetable needs year-round. Maisha has grown up with consistent access to a more diverse diet than she had as an infant. 

In 2021, Hasi offered her land to host the Max TapWater Purba Hethalia grid — a safe water supply point for the community. She understood the connection between clean water and child health. As a grid operator, she now earns a monthly income from the water service alongside income from the garden. “As a grid operator, I am proud to be a part of providing safe water service to my community,” she said. 

In 2022, she was elected president of the Purba Hethalia Community Support Organisation (CSO) under the Right2Grow programme — a role that recognised her consistent engagement and her reach in the village. She now visits households across Purba Hethalia, checks on children’s nutritional status, and encourages mothers to attend the same Courtyard sessions that shaped her own practices six years earlier. 

Hasi’s involvement spans three interconnected parts of the Right2Grow model in Bangladesh: she is a Courtyard participant who applied what she learned at home; a Max TapWater grid operator who contributes to safe water access in her village; and a CSO president who extends the programme’s reach to other families. Right2Grow works through 779 women-led CSOs in Bangladesh that advocate with local government for improved nutrition, WASH, and child health services. The Courtyard sessions, the water grid, and the CSO structure are designed to reinforce each other — and in Hasi’s case, they have.