Born in Geneva Camp, Dhaka, Shahzada Hussain is twenty two years old. He is the eldest in a family of three boys. His father, a rickshaw driver struggles to make ends meet for his family. Educating their three children is daily struggle for his parents who were able to get Shahzada through elementary school. Shahzada worked hard and his will to never give up was able to get him to high school and then to College. Infused by the spirit...
Thank you, Mohammad Wasim Khan, for being a valued OBAT student. Wasim’s father sells ice cream to support his family. His earnings, though, are not sufficient to feed the family three times a day. The family of eight lives in a squalid camp at Rangpur. To improve the wretched living conditions of his family, Wasim started studying at the OBAT tutoring center in 2005 and was able to pass his middle school exam due to the help he received there. Emboldened...
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, it was hard to overlook the poverty and the issues stemming from it, locally. We knew that while the poverty...
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 they live in. Shazia was able to complete her studies till grade nine with the help of her uncle. However,...
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 and for that we are truly grateful to him. Imamul Huq Siddiqi: – Mr. Imamul Huq Siddiqi is also a business...
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 which exists to help the students’ families, most of whom are in a position to greatly benefit from it. 89%...
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 the world a better place and we are fortunate that they chose OBAT as the vessel for their altruism. Dear...
Shabera, with her parents. 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 not afford to send him to school. Shabera tried to seek help from AWARD, a...
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 of responsibility! However, his dedication and commitment to OBAT’s work has enabled him to stay at the helm...
