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 1st 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 2nd 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”
