COMMEET
Oasis for Posterity – Education in Balagram, Bangladesh.
Who am I and what have I done?
My name is Rabiul Islam, and I have been a COMMEET Fellow for 10 years, in my community of disaster-prone Balagram area in Northwest Bangladesh. The land here is fertile, but infrastructure is minimal, technology and literacy are limited, access to funds is difficult, and both flooding and famine are always looming.
So what can one do? I pursue my mission of advancing entrepreneurship, legal frameworks, resilience and grassroots community work, so I founded Oasis for Posterity (OfP), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) focused on social welfare. Education being in my blood, OfP has since established a primary school (called the Bluebell School), a technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institute (called OIST), a healthcare centre and a computer literacy centre, among other social welfare initiatives. Our programmes primarily target vulnerable populations in the area. It was among them that I and two other COMMEET Fellows, Sigfried Janzing and Jo Spaubeck, made our first steps in the COMMEET TVET Toolkit development and testing. To this day we are all still involved.
What has been challenging and what successful?
Meeting regulatory requirements for capital, resources and workforce was challenging in the initial stages. We had to wait for rural electrification, and without a local internet network, we initially relied on mobile phone SIM modems for internet access. Nevertheless, we slowly built a supporting community, reached dedicated donors, and were able to seek assistance from local politicians.
What has been our impact?
We have empowered both men and women, fostering economic self-reliance through agricultural- based activities. Our bursary programme has promoted the advancement of female students who otherwise risk early marriage. The agricultural programmes have helped many adult women gain decision-making abilities and newfound independence. As to our TVET programmes, our student performance in national standardised tests has been the local benchmark, with OIST students
outperforming those in established institutions in the divisional capital, Rangpur.
Our commitment to environmental stewardship has encouraged each primary school kid to plant and care for a tree every year under our One Student, One Tree programme (see the picture on the home page). Awareness of sustainable development at an early age has been established. Imagine a world where primary school kids become bearers of the Ubuntu philosophy – what a nice world that would be!
COMMEET
What is next?
Our work is basically never-ending, as any teacher anywhere knows. As a non-profit, donation-driven organisation, we operate on a zero-based budget, with around 30 employees and over 100 active volunteers. We therefore aim to get in more donations to support our current offerings as a strong base for future growth. We also aim to expand existing programmes, like our pre-primary and primary education ones, while exploring new opportunities, such as an education programme for healthcare providers. It is these initiatives that make all the difference to ordinary people.
Read more?
If you want to read more than this condensed version of my story, please check out the INFORMATION button for the full bulletin.
If you are interested in this specific Commeet project, or in the work that we are doing in Bangladesh, please get into a conversation with me:
Rabiul Islam COMMEET Fellow
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrabiul/
rabiul@iubat.edu
I really look forward to talking to you. And if you like what you hear, please feel free to make a labelled donation here already towards our valuable work in Bangladesh.
