::: Star Insight :::

Feature

Hannover, Germany

Thoughts for the
Meritorious in a Foreign Land

Bangladesh is a country where human capital is scant. Despite primary enrollment being above 90% in recent years, dropout rates are as high as 40% and ensuring education for all remains an ambitious goal. What remains even more ambitious is the expectation that education will have an impact on the skill of workers in Bangladesh, given that continuing education up to secondary and beyond remains an expensive task for the typical Bangladeshi family. In such a situation, the helping hand extended by Bangladeshi immigrants living in Germany to underprivileged Bangladeshi students is truly inspiring.
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by Sharaf Ahmed

One of the speakers at the Munich Conference

Such noble acts of generousity are rare, and that too in a foreign faraway land. It all started off small with a few Bengalis in Germany taking up the cause of looking after and offering a hand to poor students of Bangladesh. It has now taken upon a huge form and has turned into an organization, which is not just limited to immigrant Bengalis, but to a portion of the German population as well.

It June 2011, a conference was held in Munich with the slogan of the cause to be spread to everyone who attended, that talked about the impacts and visions about Bangladesh. It was attended by Ziaul Malik a resident of Munich, Prof. Ralf Herting a physiologist, Dr. Martin Broun, and mostly software engineers including Fahim from Frankfurt, Dipon from Stuttgart, Dr. Ibrahim from Regenburg, Shamim from Bairuth, Saifullah, Tarik, Tushar, Sabbir, and Anis all from Munich amongst many others.

Over two hundred people from all over Germany had attended the conference and the Bangladesh Ambassador to Germany, Mashud Mannan also made an appearance at the function held by the association called 'Eugeld Forderung' in the German tongue which translates to 'Assistance by the Youth'. The members revealed how the 108 existing members were successfully bearing the education costs of 207 students from Bangladesh month after month. Prof Ralf Herting and Dr, Martin Broun both expressed how gratified they were in being able to be a part of such a great cause. The founder of the association, Ziaul Malik in his speech had elaborately discussed as to how this ordeal has been made possible. Dr. Ibrahim, a software engineer extended his invitation to everyone to make this cause a bigger success.

The Bangladesh Ambassador to Germany had thanked all the Germans who were affiliated and working in the cause, on behalf of Bangladesh. The function also consisted of cultural and music shows besides the heavy discussions held. Musicians and bands from around the country had performed during the function along with local artistes Shaon, Dipon, Anisul Haque, Subarna, Kausar Bhuiyan, and many more. The function was drawn to an end with a thank you speech given by M. A. Fahim.