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Surveying Our Villages

Posted by Timothy Chen on July 1st, 2010

The past month of work has been an eye-opening experience for me as I explore Panigram’s surrounding towns with my fellow interns.  My project for this summer is to collect baseline demographic data on these villages in order to better understand the community’s current condition—and its most pressing needs.  Since the Bangladeshi government has no demographic information (and not even any maps of the area), it’s up to us to do what in the United States would include census administration, map-making, and social outreach.  What our team is working on right now is the surveying: we visit villagers’ homes and go through a list of basic questions about household size, income, health, work, and education.  By obtaining a snapshot of the community’s current state, we hope to gauge Panigram’s impact in future years by comparing today’s data to subsequent years’.

Some of the villagers in our host community.

Some of the villagers in our host community.

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Health, Hygiene, and Hysteria

Posted by Katrina Lee on June 28th, 2010

Health and Hygiene was the topic of this week’s “Friday English Lessons”. In preparation for the lesson, we purchased about thirty toothbrushes, toothpaste packages, and mini soap bars.  Caio drew a Leonardo di Vinci Vitruvius man -inspired human body with different body parts labeled in English. It turned out to look more like a cartoon version of the Vitruvius man, but it worked. I took my try at drawing and labeling a face, but it turned out a bit creepy. I had the demonstrations all planned. With the gifts and teaching aids in hand, I thought we were fully prepared for the lesson.

Teaching English in Bangladesh

Katrina and Caio teach the children names of parts of the body in English.

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Connecting with the Community: Friday English Lessons

Posted by Katrina Lee on June 23rd, 2010

Children from the village came to the project site for English lessons.

Children from the village came to the project site for English lessons.

Last Friday marked the first of Panigram’s weekly English sessions for the kids of the village. The plan was to teach and review the English alphabet, numbers, and basic greetings.  As usual, we didn’t need to tell the kids to come to Panigram; at 3’oclock there was a group of twenty-four kids, aged four to twelve, hanging around the pavilion. Read the rest of this entry »

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Kristin Boekhoff Speaks at Cornell University

Posted by Kristin Boekhoff on April 17th, 2010

I was fortunate enough to be invited back by my alma mater, Cornell University, to speak at their annual hospitality conference, Hotel Ezra Cornell. The weekend event was packed full of industry leaders.

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Generating Power and Excitement at Panigram

Posted by Ranjeev Mahtani on February 13th, 2010

I’ve spent the better part of the last few weeks meeting with parties involved in renewable energy system implementation here in Bangladesh. As mentioned before, the front-runners in terms of power sources are solar and biogas power. A good deal of interest is brewing in the power systems of Panigram resort among various energy providers in Dhaka, and work is underway in getting the feasibility of several means assessed.

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New Panigram Intern!

Posted by Kristin Boekhoff on September 5th, 2009

Panigram Intern Molly Johnson Tackles Waste Management

The phones were ringing off the hook on August 18th. My summer interns were due to go back to the United States that day and everyone from the village in Jessore called to say goodbye. It was a tearful departure; I think that most of the interns would have stayed in Bangladesh if they didn’t have to go back to school. Chi Chi’s boy group, Jonathon’s gang, and even our construction manager called multiple times - always asking when the interns were coming back to Bangladesh. As we said our watery farewells, the interns promised to come back for a reunion after the resort is open.

Fortunately, I didn’t have much time to mourn their departure as I had another Cornell intern scheduled to arrive early the next morning. Like my other interns, Molly had seen the summer internship advertisement. She decided that a summer was not enough for her, however, so she worked with the Engineering School to set up a co-operative semester at Panigram Resort. Read the rest of this entry »

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Kristin Boekhoff Talks About Sustainability at Panigram

Posted by Kristin Boekhoff on April 27th, 2009

Khrys Vaughn, the founder of Her Startup LLC, recently interviewed me for BlogTalkRadio.  We discussed the meaning of sustainability and how I would be incorporating socially and environmentally sustainable practices into the development of the resort.

To listen to the interview, click here.

To learn more about social and environmental responsibility at Panigram Resort, please visit our Responsible Hospitality page.