Nowshad Alam lives in New Relief Camp in Rangpur, Bangladesh. He has completed his graduation and post-graduation degrees from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Dhaka- the University is regarded as a highly reputable and top-ranked university in Bangladesh.

“Things started to get tough when I started secondary (middle) school. My father was a day laborer and was the only person earning an income among the nine members of my family. With so many mouths to feed, educational expenses could not be a priority. At that time, I thought I might not be able to continue my studies anymore and would need to start working. Mr. Anwar Khan, the President of OBAT visited our camp around that time and asked me about my goals and vision. He told me, “You need not worry about expenses and other issues. You just work hard, I am with you.”

That one sentence gave me courage and strength. I started working even harder.

In 2009, I took my SSC (Secondary School Certificate) exam and attained a 5.0, Golden GPA.  I ranked 128th among 300,000 students. In 2011, I achieved a Golden GPA again in the HSC exam and attained 3rd position among 180,000 students in the Board of Education.

After my HSC exam, I applied to the University of Dhaka. About 75,000 students appeared in the entrance exam, vying for only 1,500 spots. I was one of those lucky 1,500 students who passed the entrance exam with a good score.

I have now completed my graduation and post-graduation and I am planning to study further. I also took the Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) exam.  Almost 0.4 million students participated in the BSC exam and only 20 thousand could pass the preliminary stage. I was fortunate and blessed to be one of those students and am very thankful to OBAT and its supporters for making all this possible.”

Nowshad’s other achievements included receiving a government scholarship for obtaining the 2nd position in the entrance exam to Rangpur Zilla School and another for obtaining the 128th position in the SSC exam. A third government scholarship was awarded to him for obtaining the 3rd position in the HSC examination. He is the first student from the camp community to study Chemistry at Dhaka University, where he did his thesis work on evaluation of toxic effect of heavy metal salts on human body.