My ISV in UK hasn’t only been an intellectual journey but also spiritual. I say spiritual because as I came across people with different religious beliefs I got to learn a lot about their religion. I am aware that sometimes there are clashes amongst the people with different beliefs, but what I understand so far is that all our religions teach us to be better human and live in a way where we don’t harm others rather watch out for them. I dare say, if this world is a big village then we are part of one same religion. I was at ARK(Act of Random Kindness) as part of my community visit. They help vulnerable old people and their families with food, toiletries, clothing, school uniform for kids who can’t pay for it, college education for women, job consultancy. I was so stunned knowing about all the wonderful things they are doing. Why do you think they are doing all these, I mean one association doing so many things at a time, why? Because “to Love God actually means is to love people”. Wow, just wow!

Community Visit in UK

As part of my community visited I was hosted by Ulfah art in Birmingham, the city of rich culture and history. I thought we would be visiting different projects running in that area but the first day we got there, we were taken to the Museum and the huge library and I realized that to know a community better you must know their history first. I always found history boring until I was in the Birmingham Museum.  There was just now writing and pictures; the use of present technology to attract the youth towards history was mesmerizing. There I found out what the people used to be like and what the people are right now. So they linked the ancient and youth together to represent the history properly.  The library was built recently. It was such a architectural beauty outside but once you are inside I don’t think you would like to come out, it’s not because it’s cold outside it’s because being inside is like being into another world. They have free wifi, statues and of course so many books. It’s like a social place where u read a book instead of having coffee. Well you can have coffee there if you like. The next day when I was at the BAYC (Birmingham association of Youth Club), I met this amazing, inspiring person named Michel O’Donnell. Every words he spoke I learnt something new from it. He taught us little bit about human psychology too. Then we were taken to food bank that supports homeless people and the ARK (Act of Random Kindness) project who works for vulnerable elderly people and their family. These two projects faces similar challenges but the thorn on the way to do good for the community never stops them. The ARK project not only equips people, but also engages them and enables them to do something for themselves as well. They don’t have many funds yet but they have so many enthusiastic people willing to volunteer. The last day of my community visit was the best of all the other days. I was at the Ulfah Arts Radio station called Radio Youth logy. There we recorded the things we wanted to share and we also made up a active citizen jingle. But why was it the best because when I talked to Kelly, our host that my organization runs a radio station in Bangladesh and we work with youth raising voice against odds she showed her interest to start a new project in Bangladesh. Now I completely feel globally connected and locally engaged.

Being An Active Citizen

It has been only four months since I became part of British council by taking Active Citizen Youth leadership training. The reason why I wanted to take this training was to find out how can leaders be trained as I always thought leaders were born. After the four day long training my whole perspective changed and I was totally a different and I dare say a better person. Now I know leaders can neither be trained nor be born, one can only be inspired to be a leader. I was happy enough with my life and never really realized my role for the community until this training. Now I know if I am not part of the solution I will always remain part of the problem. I am living in Rajshahi for about 3 years now and I know how difficult it is for college/University student to find a part time job there. So I along with my friends from ACYLT decided to create a web portal where we will help students living in Rajshahi find a part time job. I was busy with this web portal when CCD(center for communication and development) Bangladesh asked me to apply for ISV(International study visit) which I did without wasting any time. I was selected to represent Bangladesh in UK after a 10 minutes long interview. I was really excited to know that there would participants from 7 different countries there. So I was not only going to UK I was going to know about 7 other countries only in 7 days.

On the 1^st day the participants were asked to set up a stall to describe their countries and share interesting things from each country after visiting all the stalls. At the sharing session everyone was talking about Bangladeshi stall and how they liked our positivity and enthusiasm and they really liked my web portal and they promised me to have a look at it. I was so happy when other participants showed their interest in visiting Bangladesh. 

On the 2^nd day I learnt about “sheep mentality”. Sheep mentality is to follow around other and do nothing to solve issues. We are all the same no matter which country we belong to. We see something wrong in our society and decide to keep our mouth shut like everyone else. So we figured out some important steps to turn “Sheeple” into “People”.

I had the opportunity to meet Rushnara Ali, the first Bangladeshi-British MP, who likes to look at the bright side of every problem. If I didn’t meet her I would have never known how to handle problems with an optimistic smile.

As part of my 3 days community visit in UK I went to Birmingham, the city of rich culture and history, where I came to know about youth making a difference.  At BAYC (Birmingham association of youth club) I met this 19 years old guy named Abdul who is an entrepreneur and Marketing consultant of BAYC. I kind of felt old when I heard all the things he has done and achieved at such a young age. Then Michel O’Donnell, the director of BAYC inspired me by saying that it’s never too late to start.

After this life changing ISV I feel so enthused, energized, empowered and confident about brining positive changes to my community and my country. This ISV helped me to be in a global bond with other countries. Now I understand clearly that if you want to make this world a better place to live in you must start with your community first. The active citizen Strap line explains it all. “Globally connected, locally engaged”