Feature

YES in Action
Changes possible but miles to go….

Md. Ziaul Haque Sheikh

FOR Bangladesh, the emerging youths, who are about one-third of the total population, are the biggest hope. When all the efforts fail, it is always the youth who light up the candles of hope. Youths can surely achieve anything they want and they have got all the potentials needed to fight evil powers as the history proudly portrays youth power in the field of social and national movements, liberation war etc.

YES (Youth Engagement and Support) started with the initiatives of TIB to create awareness among local people and establish transparency and accountability among the government officials and local representatives. Now early marriage has been prohibited, free primary education is ensured, annual budget of UP (Union Parishad) has been announced publicly and above all, people's representatives and government officials of different institutions are now more accountable to people than before.

Brief History
In the year 2006 with the slogan “Invincible Youth Will Surely Resist Corruption” TIB took up a programme named Youth Engagement and Support (YES), which consists of TIB's volunteers, theatre activists, working youths and students of different youth, cultural and sports organizations aged 13 to 30 years. As the name suggests, YES is an energetic team of youth volunteers who promised to say “YES” to the anti-corruption movement.

TIB arranged orientation to organize, inspire and motivate YES members for anti-corruption movement. They got training and orientation on YES movement which included youth leadership and planning for change, theatre for development, advice and information desk, anti-corruption debate orientation, success story writing skills and techniques etc.

To make the most out of the youths' potentials, TIB designed a very special procedure which will certainly help eradicate corruption. They organized a day-long YES orientation for 1165 volunteers of YES group from 36 CCCs in the year 2006-2007. The objective behind the workshop was quite evident; the decisive goal behind the workshop was to create awareness against corruption among the youth, increase their confidence level, build their leadership skills, develop their communicative skills and thus create a strong vocal force against corruption. And to do so, TIB included some interactive work in the workshop. It taught the volunteers some unique advocacy skills to motivate the masses against corruption by creating a sharp sense of awareness.

The volunteers then included some government institutions which according to them are the most corrupt organizations in their locality. Some voted to eradicate corruption in health sector, some wanted to improve the facilities of educational institutes, and some were interested to work to upgrade the amenities provided by the local government.

Each volunteer group or YES group finally chooses the field of work which they think needs immediate attention for uprooting corruption.

This is how they begin to see big dreams, this is how they rediscover their potentials. But, it may be easy to dream, but it's really very tough to accomplish the dreams. As the workshop ended, it was time to implement the plan they took up to combat corruption. So, they began to do the following jobs:

Holding sharing meetings with the authorities of hospitals, Schools and local government to increase the level of service with the assistance of CCC;

To assist in making fact-sheet on the available services of institution, type of service, fees of service and free service;

Distributing fact-sheet among the people by Advice and Information Desk (AI-Desk);

Shows organised by People Theatre;

Establishment of AI-Desk with the assistance of authorities concerned ;

Organise sharing meetings with service holders;

With these processes effective changes have been made in health, education and local government services. The changes are:

* The patients now know various information concerning types of medicine found in hospitals, fees of various services and availability of doctors;

* By having complaint boxes in hospitals patients now can complain to the authorities and can give them advice to solve it;

* Sharing meetings with the authorities are being held regularly on the basis of complaints of the people; The CCC authorities are requesting hospitals to solve complaints of the people as early as possible. YES members often visit hospitals and share their observations and experiences in such meetings;

* Sharing meetings are being held with the SMC (School Managing Committee), CCC members and YES members to eradicate irregularities from schools, especially in distributing stipend money, arrival of teachers on time, taking classes properly and increasing the awareness of the guardians;

People's representatives are now more answerable to the public and present their annual budget openly.

YES teams have already shown that they are working for change. They are creating some positive examples for the society which are inspiring and encouraging the masses. As for example:

Example of Eradicating Corruption
In mid December 2007, the members of YES group, Gazipur were informed that the students of 28 No Deshipara Government Primary School had to pay as a precondition about Tk. 100 to collect books despite the fact that it was a free primary school. The total amount of collected money would be Tk. 27,600. So on January 5, 2008 YES members of Gazipur visited the school and verified the fact of this illegal matter by talking with the students and their guardians. Even Md. Abu Obaida, the Head Master of this school, confessed this matter and said that The School Management Committee (SMC) decided it in a meeting held on January 1, 2008. YES members discussed this important issue with the authorities of the school and proved that collecting money from students in the name of distributing books is a corrupt practice. At last the Head Master called for an emergency SMC meeting and decided to stop collecting money from the students. Md. Abul Hossain, chairman of SMC, in his speech apologized about the previous decision and assured that the school authorities will never impose such fees violating the government provision of free primary education.

Example of Preventing Child Marriage
Pukpukuria is a village of Fasiakhali UP under Chakaria Upazila of Cox's Bazar district. Rozina (13) was a student of class-seven. She was about to be forced to a marriage by his father with a boy named Md. Nurul Kader (16) who was residing in a village named Satghoria Para. Rozina knew that it was illegal to get married before the age of 18. Under the circumstances, Rozina informed the matter to YES members (Trishita & Toyeba) of Chakaria. Immediately YES members made a visit and met with Upazila Nirbahi Officer-UNO taking Rozina along.

YES has taken leadership to promote anti-corruption Oath in different educational institutions in their respective areas. Students of various schools, college and universities have been taking the Oath along with the YES members. They are becoming aware of the importance of staying away from unfair means in the examinations and from engaging in corrupt practices in their student and professional lives.

YES also arranges “People Theatre” to disseminate information and raising awareness among the general people. From 2007-08, 34 Theatre workshops, 01 cultural group and 13 refresher workshops have been done at local level with the technical and financial assistance of TIB.

YES also conducts AI-Desk at all the 36 CCC offices throughout the country to create awareness among the masses about their rights by providing relevant information about different educational and cultural institutes, hospitals, banks, Union Parishads, responsibilities of local governments, problems related to land properties, police and cases, gas, electricity, passports, constitutional rights of the people and so on so that people can easily know about their rights and can seek help about corruption in these fields.

The involvement of the youth has opened up a path to go ahead to establish a corruption and poverty- free Bangladesh. But like the words of English poet Robert Frost in his great poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, “Miles to go…”, we really have miles to go to root out corruption from our society.