Bringing joy to little ones on Eid

Shah Sikandar Shakir received an offer for a part time job last month. He was rather confused over whether to join or not. Joining the job meant quitting a private tuition he was doing at that time and stopping a certain task he had been carrying out in a dedicated manner for several years. Finally he made up his mind. He went to his employer-to-be and told him he would join, but only on a certain condition.

The condition was that his salary would have to be paid before the end of the month. The employer was surprised at the request. After all, Shakir hadn't even joined the job. He asked him the reason.

Shakir explained, in an emotional voice, that he wanted to buy clothes for destitute children with his salary. He was doing this for years, spending from his savings and his tuition salary, he said.

The employer agreed to the condition. Finally Shakir, along with his friends, distributed the clothes among poor children on 25 May. "It's a dream come true for a child who cannot even hope of having new clothes.” The happy young man said, “What can be more delightful than fulfilling children’s dreams!”

Shakir, a postgraduate student of Murari Chand University College, Sylhet, is the president of Prothom Alo’s Sylhet Bandhusabha (a country-wide youth based readers' forum of Prothom Alo). He is one among the persons successfully carrying out Bandhusabha's nationwide programme, 'Ekti Kore Rongin Jama' (Colourful clothes for every child).

Like Shakir, Jashore Bandhusabha's Kazi Tahmina too spends her savings to buy clothes for destitute children. Tahmina recently completed her postgraduate studies. She is working on handicrafts, aiming to be an entrepreneur. For the last three years, she spent her Eid money on outfits for deprived girl children. She donates the clothes only among girl children as "girls are always neglected which can be seen during the distribution of new clothes by the families."

The Rongin Jama programme was initiated in 2017. Though the programme is arranged centrally, members of Bandhusabha across the country actually carry out the programme as per their capacity. People cooperate with them.

After collecting the funds, they buy the clothes together and distribute them at slums, railway stations or areas with impoverished ones.

"Collecting funds, buying clothes, delivering them to the children-- is not easy," said Sifat Abdullah, a Jamalpur Bandhusabha member. "But the moment a child receives the clothes and smiles, everything seems divine," he added.

The members of 128 branches of Bandhusabha across the country will distribute clothes till 2 June. A number of 15,000 children will receive the outfits this year. The number was 12,000 last year and 10,213 in 2018.

The outfits are being distributed in several phases in Dhaka. On 28 May, Tasnim Turzi of Bandhusabha's national council, distributed clothes among the slum children at Karail. These children had no idea whether they would get new clothes for Eid. Most of them were from poor families while many were orphans and some had their mothers working as domestic help. This was like a dream to them.

Bandhusabha members are fulfilling such dreams across the country.

*This feature, originally published in Prothom Alo print edition, has been rewritten here in English by Nusrat Nowrin.