Imagine a place where knee-deep, heavily polluted water engulfs your surroundings for nine months out of the year. Now picture yourself living in that place, blind and impoverished, relying on your family members to walk a mile just to collect drinking water. This was the harsh reality for the residents of Andha Colony in Demra's Boxnagar.

Nestled on the edge of Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, Andha Colony may not resemble a bustling urban area, but it is an integral part of the Dhaka South City Corporation. Among its inhabitants, 49 community members are visually impaired and fall under the urban poor category, desperately in need of urgent assistance to protect their lives.

In this colony, one can find rows of houses surrounded and overlooked by water bodies. Within these houses, Borhan Uddin, a 60-year-old visually impaired man, has spent his entire life. For as long as he can remember, the monsoon rains have brought endless suffering and horror. Borhan Uddin, who used to rely on begging for survival, would navigate through stagnant water to reach his home throughout most of the year.

"Our children had to wade through the dark, foul water to get to and from school for all these years. Returning home was a struggle each time. We clung to the walls of the houses that lined the dirt road, using them as a guide to prevent us from slipping into the waterbody at the road's edge," reminisced Borhan Uddin. He added, "We had limited access to drinking water. Our family members, especially the women, had to walk long distances to collect water and pay for it."