Yearly Archives: 2012

Up until last year, OBAT’s mission was centered mainly on helping the stranded Bihari’s eking out a miserable living in camps in Bangladesh since 1972. Since the last seven years, OBAT has been trying to reconstruct and reform their lives by empowering them with education, income earning opportunities and offering them basic amenities of life. Being based in Indianapolis, however,...

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Shazia feels that in the society in which she lives, girls are considered a curse. Shazia is the eldest of three sisters and lives in a rented house in Halishaher. Out of the mere sixty-five dollars that her father brings home as income every month, thirty-three dollars are used to pay for the rent of the tin and bamboo shack...

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Syed Zakwan Barkati :- Syed Zakwan Barkati is the Finance Director of OBAT and has been with the organization since its inception. Zakwan also acts  as the principal liaison with OBAT’s partnering non profit, ISDCM, in Bangladesh. He is a business man by profession but he is devoted to helping the community around him. He works  as a volunteer for OBAT...

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Join us as we collect gently used books for first to 6th graders at the Sense Charter School so the school can start a library for its students. A school without a library, where kids don’t have recourse to books is a shame and goes against the institution’s principles of fostering learning.   Sense School also needs to stock its food pantry...

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DONORS! Where do we even start with this one? Suffice it to say that, without them, OBAT could not exist. They are our lifeblood, our backbone. Their commitment to help stranded and afflicted Biharis living thousands of miles away, people whom they haven’t met and seen and most likely never will, is colossal. They are people who really want to make...

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Tell us, what will you do today to celebrate it.

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Twenty year old Shabera lives in Geneva camp in Dhaka with her parents and two brothers. Her father drives a rickshaw for a living while her mother is a home-maker. Shabera’s older brother is a drug addict and only adds to the family’s mounting financial problems. The younger brother could only study up to grade four as the family could...

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Sohail Khan (Education Coordinator for OBAT’s schools in Bangladesh): OBAT would like to acknowledge and applaud the efforts of Sohail Akhter Khan who has served as OBAT’s Education Coordinator and Head Teacher of OBAT Halishaher School since 2005. Seven schools, three tutoring Centers and two computer training centers of OBAT are under the wing of Sohail. That is a lot...

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On this day, we say thank you to Sense Charter School for being a great partner. As OBAT's beneficiary for its local project, "Rehma," Sense has provided OBAT with the opportunity to contribute in the local community. OBAT finances tutors who provide tutoring to struggling students at the school. Most of the children at the Sense School are in need...

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  Twenty one year old Arshi was born in Geneva Camp. She still lives there with six other family members in a small hut. Her father’s job as an office assistant only got her as far as high school, where her studies were concerned. When Arshi witnessed her father’s predicament to make ends meet, she dropped out of undergraduate studies. Knowing...

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