The Global Leaders will fix the fate of our planet in next month at Copenhagen! Now the time is to call them to realise the impacts of climate changes and to formulate effective strategy to save the world. If they fail to realise it, the planet and human civilisation will be destroyed! So, remind them again and again for formulate policy to save the world and call them `Climate First! Act Now'! SIGN THE PETITION and join in the campaign.

Climate First! Act Now

Climate First!

Urges the Global Leaders: Sign the Petition

Petition Submitted by: 

Online Knowledge Centre

 

Watch Impact of Climate Change
Join in Discussion

JOIN IN CLIMATE WALK

 We demand: 

• The developed countries to reduce their emission by 45 percent in aggregate against 1990 levels by 2020 and make available fund of $150 billion a year to help protect the victims.

• Financing  to the climate victim nations should not be loans, and the scale of finance should be revised with changes in the adaptation needs.

• The international community to reject all myopic, self-centred discords, reject the culture of excess and waste, to embrace one another’s responsibility, burden, prosperity, and live in harmony within the planet’s capacity.

•  The climate change adaptation financing must be additional to and distinct from ODA targets of 0.7% of Gross National Income meant for the developing countries and 0.2% for LDCs by 2010, as reaffirmed in the Brussels Program of Action.

• Besides, out of this fund, every year a substantial amount should be kept aside for adaptation needs of developing countries with maximum share going to low lying coastal countries, LDCs and the small-island developing countries.

• Though Bangladesh established a US$ 45 million Climate Change Fund with own resources, and there is also a Multi-Donor Trust Fund of US$ 150 million with support of the United Kingdom, the amounts are meagre in comparison to the needs.

• Adopt  a new legal regime under the UNFCCC Protocol ensuring social, cultural and economic rehabilitation of climate refugees from COP 15 in Copenhagen.

• The outcome in the Copenhagen meet must uphold the core principle of common but differentiated share of responsibility; assured, adequate, and easily accessible funding for adaptation; access to scientific information to climate change in sectors like risk reduction, water resources, agriculture, energy, urban planning and health disorders.

• The Copenhagen meet must also ensure affordable, eco-friendly technology transfer to developing countries, particularly to LDCs; make maximum possible specific commitments for deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions for atmospheric stabilisation.

• The post 2012 agreement must, however, incorporate predictable and legally binding commitments for addressing adaptation needs of low lying, coastal, and small-island developing states, and LDCs.

• Establishment of an international adaptation centre under UNFCCC.

• Setting up  a Himalayan Council in the model of the Artic Council to assist similarly affected countries in facing the challenges of glacial melting in the Himalayas.

Call your ministers and policy makers to realise these demands at Copenhagen. Sign the Petition

For more information, Visit: Join Now! / Discussion/ Climate Change and Join in Discussion

BERCELONA CLIMATE TALK UPDATE: 12 November 2009

The last negotiating session before the historic UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December concluded Friday, 6 November 2009 in Barcelona, Spain.

Speaking at a press conference in Barcelona, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer reiterated that Copenhagen must result in a strong international climate change deal. “Copenhagen can and must be the turning point in the international fight against climate change – nothing has changed my confidence in that,” said de Boer. “A powerful combination of commitment and compromise can and must make this happen,” he told a news conference in Barcelona, the site of the final round of talks ahead of the 7 to 18 December meeting in the Danish capital. In Copenhagen, governments are expected to agree to a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 treaty – part of the overall UNFCCC – which has strong, legally binding measures committing 37 industrialized States to cutting emissions by an average of 5 per cent against 1990 levels over the period from 2008 to 2012.

“The Secretary-General is confident that governments will reach agreement in Copenhagen on the fundamental issues that will form the substance of a legally binding international agreement which is the end goal for guiding action on climate change,” the Director of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Climate Change Support Team, Janos Pasztor, told a news conference in New York.

“Politicians seem to be obsessed with expressing what they cannot achieve, rather than setting a high bar for how they will save the world from catastrophic temperature rises,” said Kim Carstensen, the leader of WWF’s global climate initiative. “They are saying all the wrong things but they still have a chance to do all the right things.” “Barcelona didn’t achieve much that was spectacular, but it kept the pace of slow, steady progress. The key issue is not time, but political will and that can be shown in a matter of seconds,” Carstensen said. “While developed countries were trying to lower expectations, the world’s expectations were actually rising.”

“This is a political struggle between rich countries’ short term commercial interests and the survival of hundreds of millions of people. From children who swim to school, women forced to give birth knee-deep in flood water, farmers facing crop failure year after year, it’s people that must be prioritised,” said Mukta Ziaul Hoque, of Oxfam.

“We have seen rich countries continually seeking to ditch emissions targets under the Kyoto Protocol. They are tearing down an existing, legally binding international framework, which has taken years of negotiation to establish, in an attempt to wriggle out of their responsibility to cut their emissions first and fastest,” said Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland Executive Director Andy Atkins.

07.12.2009: Countdown CLIMATE TALKS

An SOS from Newspaper: Today 56 newspapers in 44 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial

Climate bell tolls – Livlihood changes with weather

Copenhagen talks open today

Rising sea to cost Bangladesh dear

MPs raise their voice on climate change

All eyes on Copenhagen : The world looks expentantly a deal

CO2 unleashes more warming than thoughts

Melting Himalyan glaciers threathen 1.3 billions Asians

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Report from the UN : Measuring national progress

Joseph Stiglitz put it well: “What you measure affects what you do…if you don’t measure the right thing you don’t do the right thing.” So how should we judge the progress of a nation?

The much-quoted Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a tally of goods and services bought and sold with no distinction between transactions that add to well-being and those that diminish it. A car accident that creates business for hospitals, insurers, lawyers and auto repair shops increases the GDP. So does economic activity that damages the environment. But household and volunteer work, which improve our well-being, aren’t counted if no money is exchanged.

The man who created the GDP, New Deal economist Simon Kuznets warned us not to use it as the sole measure of a nation’s health. As he told Congress, “Distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between cost and returns and between the short and the long run. Goals for more growth should specify more growth of what for what.” We would also add “for whom.” The GDP includes no measure of income distribution. For example from 1973 to 1993 the GDP of the United State rose by over 50 percent while wages declined by almost 14.

The GDP was better than no measure at all. During World War II, it allowed policymakers to track production for the war and it now gives us useful information on consumer purchases, which are linked to new jobs. But the GDP should not be our sole measure of progress.

The current economic crisis has spurred renewed interest in finding alternatives. Last year President Sarkozy of France created a Commission on the Measurent of Economic Performance and Social Progress. Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, who serve on the commission, have both urged that new assessment tools incorporate a broader concern for human welfare than just economic growth.

Several new ways to measure national progress have been proposed:

• The Genuine Progress Indicator adjusts the GDP for changes in income distribution, adds the value of household and volunteer work and subtracts for crime and pollution.
• The Gross National Happiness measure includes subjective and objective indicators such as sustainable development, preservation of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment and good governance. This idea comes from King Wangchuck, the former ruler of Bhutan.
• The Happy Planet Index combines subjective life satisfaction,based on surveys, life expectancy and environmental impact as measured by the ecological footprint which is based on a complicated formula relating to CO2 emissions and the use of natural resources.

The trouble with these and other indexes is that they include data that require interpretation.

The founding charter of the United Nations calls for the promotion of social progress and a better standard of life. The UN publishes a yearly Human Development Report (HDR), which tabulates each member country’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product—the dollar value of all the goods and services produced by a nation that year—as well as measures of life expectancy, education, health, nutrition, sanitation, the availability of clean water, gender discrimination and the distribution of income. The aim of the HDR is to track how development affects daily life. To measure progress, the United Nations frequently refers to the Human Development Index (HDI) which combines GDP, life expectancy, and educational level. As an example, Oman, which has a very high GDP per capita, but relatively low educational levels, ranks 58th,lower in HDI than Uruguay, which has about 60 percent of its GDP and has rank 46.

It’s time to measure what is most important: improvements in national well-being.

Dr. Sylvain Ehrenfeld, representative to the UN from the International Humanist Ethical Union and Temma Ehrenfeld. Dr. Ehrenfeld writes a monthly column reporting on developments at the United Nations.

Trade Justice! Act Now

Trade Justice! Act Now

Urges the Global Leaders to give Priorities to LDCs in Global Trade: Please Sign the Petition

Petition submitted by: Online Knowledge Centre

Read More: Trade Justice! Act Now 

PICTURE

25.11.2009, Dhaka: Trade Justice! Act Now

 

25.11.2009, Dhaka: Trade Justice! Act Now

 

 

 

 

 Leaflet on Trade Justice Campaign in Bangla.

  MEDIA COVERAGE:
Campaign: Trade Justice! Act Now 
- Online Petition Submission
- Blogging
- Online Leaflet
 Human Chain in Front of National Press Club, 25 November 2009, 11.30 AM-12.45 PM, Organised by Online Knowledge CentreElectronic Media:
Thanks Diganta Television and My TV to Broadcast the News and Interview of this Human Chain.Print Media:Thanks Daily Star and The Daily Prothom Alo to Publish the Pictures and News of this Human Chain.Please Read the News:The Daily Prothom Alo, 26 November 2009: Human Chain at Dhaka targeting WTO Conference (WTO er Sommelon Upalokhkhe Dakay Manob Bandhan)

  e-Prothom Alo: http://www.eprothomalo.com/index.php?opt=view&page=15&date=2009-11-26

The Daily Star publishes Picture in Business Page.

25.11.2009, Rajshahi: Trade Justice! Act Now

 Follow Up:Bangladesh demands granting DFQF by 2010 in WTO Ministerial Conference, The Daily New Nation, 01 December 2009

Online Activism: Possibilities and Prospects

I could connect everywhere of the globe in a second, but not my village. Everyday I could use skypee and messenger to see my friends lived outside of Bangladesh, but not able to see my family members, school friends and neighbours living in my village. I could visit Asia, Europe, America, Africa, Arctic, the moon and my villages also within few minutes using google earth, but my friends never get these opportunities. I could enjoy my time, but could not share these with my childhood friends. Everyday, I talk about agriculture, rural economy, indigenous knowledge etc  in different meetings and seminars and discuss about development. But I could not discuss these issues with my family and friends who are lived at rural areas engaged in agriculture! 

Realising this context, anybody find only difficulties rather opportunities on online activism. But I feel hopeful while I see, a lot of people, in Bangladesh also expresses their own opinion in different social network sites like Somewhereinblog, prothom alo blog, mukto-mona, wordpress, blogger etc! Facebook, a great tools of social network is popular in Bangladesh. I also get return back of some friends due to facebook. With all the limitations, I find, people particularly the youth are becoming more optimistic about welfare of common people who have not access in online world.

Only two years ago, I created this blog and just updated it with only news which fulfilled my needs to prepare my write-up on different issues. Later I found some opportunities to use this blog as social mobilisation tools and I started to post some articles in some selected areas related to my work. But I couldn’t able to reach the people, but I found from my dashboard (control panel) that more and more people visiting my blog everyday.

As a social worker, I have always try to connect people as much as possible. But the blog gave me the opportunities to connect the global people, but I found a great limitation to connect my own people through this blog. I found a great possibility of online activism through participating at different forum through online; but not able to use these possibilities for my own people who are living in the remote villages. So, I searched way to create an opportunity for my own people whose for I work. Discussing with friends, I planned to develop a telecentre at remote areas; mobile technologies enhanced the possibilities to create an opportunity.

But problem is there also; I found again that people, particularly youths are more interested to chat with others as per their own interest rather uses the internet technology for serving the interest of lives and livelihood; so I tried to organise the youths in colleges and universities and started to conduct study circles through creating a bangla blog. A few youths showing interest to join in discussion and together we planned to use these social networking sites as alternative media. For these reason, now we are organising the youths at rural areas through founding clubs, associations and asked them to join with us through using internet from cyber cafe and mobile phone. Journey is started and I dream, my friends and families from my villages connects me at early of the morning, at noon, at afternoon, evening and also after mid-night through a telecentre where rural youths will be become as a social entrepreneur  to provide the services to my villagers.

I also dream, my villagers are taking part in discussion on agriculture, rural employment, rural economy at the blog  and together we are acting as pressure group to formulate public policy to protect live and livelihood of rural people. Together we will build another world! A Knowledge Based Society through online activism. Do you mean! Just join with us!

Ashoka: Innovators for the Public are hosting Tech 4 Society, a conference exploring technology, invention and social change, in Hyderabad, India, in February 2009. Find out more about the conference here. This blog post is an entry in their competition to find the official blogger to travel to and cover the event.

Marriage: Myths of Mystery and Misery

Written by: William Gomes 

 

 

The institution of marriage and its history are as long and varied as the history of human race. Many dynasties rose and fell, notable novels and poems were written, and wars were fought over the issue of marriage. Laws were introduced in different parts of the world to protect the institution of marriage.

 

Unfortunately, in Bangladesh, marriage has often become a source of crime and violence, and even for the transmission of diseases. According to statistics of the Bangladesh police, 69,801 cases of cruelty against women were registered between 2003 and 2007. Most of these cases were in some way related to marriage or sexual desire.

 

Marriage has become a vehicle for the perpetuation of the oppression of women in various ways; it is through the role of wife that the subjugation of women is maintained. While sex and sexual desire is a natural force for healthy and productive society, marriage has, at times, become an undesirable obstacle to natural sexual desire and freedom.

 

All over the South Asian subcontinent, changing socioeconomic conditions and people’s higher levels of education have caused a rise in the marriage age and a drop in the the incidence of marriage. Young people often spend half their adult lives outside of marriage, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are waiting until marriage to enjoy a wonderful sexual life; rather, they are enjoying active sexual lives with available precautions.

 

Where cultures recognize the importance of marriage, they also view sex outside of marriage and adultery as a violation of the terms of marriage. Marriage as an institution was developed and constituted from rape as a practice. Whereas without marriage woman have more freedom, in marriage women can become the object of legalized rape.

 

Marriage as a institution has become optional. People are being initiated into sex before marriage, while conservatives are trying to turn back the tide, arguing for the primacy of marriage by promoting traditional values.

 

Traditionalists argues that if people deny the institution of marriage, then the basic structure of society, the family, will slowly be banished from society; consequently, society as a whole will be negatively affected. Violence crimes and sexual violence against woman will substantially rise. Again the question is, who will be the victim and who will be the perpetrator in this changing situation? Obviously, the woman will be the victim of violence and the man will be the perpetrator. Nothing will change now while the marriage fails the pepretotrs of violence against woman are man and when the marriage instition will be dissolve the perpretor will be man , not the woman.

 

Marriage urged the perfection or how successful the marriage is, but there is no perfect marriage, for there are no perfect men or women. Marriage itself a institution that historically filled with restrictions that fails to present freedom and fertility to the couples.

 

People marry for different reasons, most often including one or more of the following: legal, social, emotional, economical, spiritual and religious. If you ask 100 different people to define viable reasons for wanting a divorce, you’ll most likely get 100 different answers. Common reasons that cause people to think about or want to get a divorce are: conflicting personal beliefs, decreased marital satisfaction, abandonment, adultery, abuse, bigamy, imprisonment, institutionalization, and so on.

 

I wonder why prostitution is illegal and marriage is legal, even though prostitution is described as the world’s oldest profession. In marriage, the wife becomes a licensed prostitute, and the wife is doing the same thing. The Chanakya Indian strategist and Writer rightly described a wife in marriage, “A good wife is one who serves her husband in the morning like a mother does, loves him in the day like a sister does and pleases him like a prostitute in the night.”

 

The abolition of marriage on the Indian subcontinent will bring an end to the source of violence in marriages, the dowry system and any other form of oppression that men and women experience through marriage.

 

Abraham Lincoln said, “Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.” The religions of the world are trying their best to guide their followers towards heaven while some get married, many get divorced and new groups introduce gay marriage. Thousands are fighting to legalize gay marriage, while religions have declared a crusade to deny such rights.

 

The Myths of Mystery and Misery of marriage will come to an end; the people will set the free from the captivity of the captive system of marriage, sharp suppressive tools of religion and politics when the marriage system will be abolished in the society.

 

 

 

ক্লাইমেন্ট ফাস্ট! অ্যাক্ট নাউ

আগামী মাসের ৭ হতে ১৮ ডিসেম্বর ২০০৯ ডেনমার্কের রাজধানী কোপেনহেগেনে জাতিসংঘের জলবায়ু পরিববর্তন সম্মেলন বা কনফারেন্স অব দ্য পার্টিস (কপ-১৫) অনুষ্ঠিত হবে। উক্ত সম্মেলনে জলবায়ু পরিবর্তনের অভিঘাত মোকাবেলায় সারাবিশ্বের নেতৃবৃন্দ গুরুত্বপূর্ণ সিদ্ধান্ত গ্রহন করবেন।

জলবায়ু পরিবর্তনের তি প্রশমনে কার্বন নিগর্মনের মাত্রা হ্রাস, স্বল্পোন্নত ও অধিক ঝুঁকিপূর্ণ দেশসমুহের জন্য তহবিল গঠনসহ বাধ্যবাধকতামূলক প্রতিশ্র“তি আদায়ের জন্য স্বল্পোন্নত ও উন্নয়নশীল দেশগুলির প হতে বাংলাদেশকে আরো সোচ্চার ভূমিকা পালন করতে হবে। জাতিসংঘের ইন্টার গভার্নমেন্টাল প্যানেল অন কাইমেট চেইঞ্জ বা আইপিসিসির হিসাব অনুযায়ী বৈশ্বিক উষ্ণতায় সবচাইতে ঝুঁকির মধ্যে রয়েছে  মালদ্বীপ, টুভালু, কিরিবাতি, কোস্টারিকা, বাংলাদেশ, হন্ডুরাস, নিকারাগুয়া, ভিয়েতনাম, ডোমিনিকান রিপাবলিক প্রভৃতি। এশিয়ার দেশগুলির মধ্যে ভুটান ও নেপালও মারাত্মকভাবে তিগ্রস্থ হওয়ার আশংকা রয়েছে। এসবদেশের মধ্যে বাংলাদেশকে নেতৃস্থানীয় ভূমিকায় অবতীর্ণ হতে হবে। বাংলাদেশের জোরালো পদপে গ্রহণের ওপর এই সম্মেলনের সাফল্য অনেকটা নির্ভর করছে।

বাংলাদেশের এই নেতৃস্থানীয় ভূমিকাকে অগ্রসর করার জন্য একদিকে সরকারকে আরও বেশি দায়িত্বপূর্ণ ভূমিকা পালন করতে হবে, অন্যদিকে জনগণকে বিশ্বের দরবারে বাংলাদেশের দাবীসমূহকে উপস্থাপন করে সারাবিশ্বের মানুষের মধ্যে সংহতি স্থাপনের প্রয়োজনীয় উদ্যোগ গ্রহন করতে হবে।

এই উদ্যোগের অংশ হিসাবে দেশের বিভিন্ন সংগঠন বিভিন্ন প্রচারণা ও কার্যক্রম পরিচালনা করছে। অনলাইন নলেজ সেন্টার একই উদ্দেশ্যে একটি অললাইন পিটিশন সাবমিট করেছে। পিটিশনটির লিংক: Climate First! Act Now

উক্ত পিটিশনে স্বার করার মাধ্যমে আপনিও এই প্রচারণায় অংশ নিতে পারেন। আমাদের সকলের সম্মিলিত প্রচারণা এই মূহুর্তে খুবই জরুরি। পিটিশনটিতে নিজে স্বার করুন এবং অন্যকে স্বার করতে উৎসাহিত করুন।

ওয়ার্ডপ্রেসে বাংলা লিখুন খুব সহজে : কিভাবে বিজয়কে ইউনিকোডে কনভার্ট করে ওয়ার্ডপ্রেসে ব্যবহার করবেন?

প্রথমে এমএস ওয়ার্ডে বিজয় দিয়ে বাংলা লিখুন। লেখা শেষ হলে তা কপি করুন। তারপর নিম্নের লিংকটিতে কিক করুন: http://bnwebtools.sourceforge.net/। যে ওয়েবপেজটি ওপেন হয়েছে, তার নীচের দিকে পুরনো বাংলা বক্সে  পেষ্ট করুন। তারপর ইউনিকোডে বদলে ওপরে নাও ইন্সট্রাকশনে কিক করুন। দেখবেন পেষ্ট করা লেখাটি ওপরের ইউনিকোড এডিটর বক্সে ইউনিকোড ফন্টে দেখাবে। তারপর সেই লেখাটি কপি করে আপনার সি-প্যানেল বা কমেন্টের ঘরে পেষ্ট করুন।
এভাবে ওয়ার্ডপ্রেসে আপনি বাংলায় লিখতে পারবেন। 

Across a Occean of Silence!

`We don’t employ Child Labour’ or `It is Child Labour Free Factory’ or `Children are not allowed to work here’- You will see many different types of sentences in same meaning at the entries of any industrial establishments or factory. It aligned with our great (!) programme `Stop Child Labour’.

Thousands of children are eliminated from RMG factories as a compliance were set on child labour as per Harkins Bill implemented in Bangladesh in 1995. ILO Convention 182 stated that Child labour, as the statistics clearly demonstrate, is a problem of immense global proportions. Following its comprehensive research into the issue, the ILO concluded that it was necessary to strengthen existing Conventions on child labour. Convention No. 182 helped to focus the international spotlight on the urgency of action to eliminate as a priority, Worst forms of child labour without losing the long-term goal of the effective elimination of all child labour. And according to ILO Convention No. 138  Basic minimum ages has been set out and it is in developing countries 14 years and 18 years for hazardous work.

The principle is great indeed! But how great these are in the real world! According to a study done by Safe the Children UK, in 2007 a total of 1,532 children were sent to jails in Bangladesh. Of them 617 boys and 24 girls were detained under the Penal Code, 136 boys and 11 girls under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 95 boys and two girls under the Special Powers Act, 51 boys under the Arms Act, 98 boys and four girls under the Narcotics Control Act, 43 boys and one girl under the Speedy Trial Act, 135 boys and 110 girls under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act, 21 boys under the Foreigners Act, and 149 boys and 35 girls were sent to jails under other laws.

A story published in the Daily Ittefaq, dated 06 October 2009 described that Samiul (12) works 12 hours in each day at an automobile factory to feed her sick mother and sister. The boy wants to go school, but he doesn’t; if he does, then his mother and sister will go in bed with empty mouth. UNICEF reports says,  67 lac 84 thousands child labour exists in Bangladesh, of them 94 percent engages in informal sector whose 70 percent works in hazardous and worsen enviroment.

Another report of Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS) points out that about 4.2 lakh children are currently working as domestic helps in the country while about 65 percent of the workers get wages below Tk 500 and  at least 217 domestic helps were killed between 2001 and 2008. Besides, 97 were injured, 40 were raped and 23 went missing during the period. 

In the recent time, through the newspaper we are informed that children are used as carrier of narcotics like Yaba. A story published in national dailies where an arrested children said, `we are very poor, so bound to work such illegal works  for only sack of livelihood.’  We know well about Tokai (Rag Picker and Street Children of Dhaka) who are  sometimes used as tools (for throwing bomb) to spoils public meetings! 

We have eliminated child labour from formal sector, so they engages in informal sector where have not any legal binding like rules, regulations or laws for their work.  We the right activists demand the child policy, labour laws in informal sector and education for these children. But no way to eliminate them from work! Without realising the root causes of child labour, rights never be realised in real ground; And the root causes are poverty and income inequality which should be eliminated first!

We, the people, particularly social activists and social workers acts for these children in different ways! We have expended thousands of crore for non-formal education and stipend for girls child. But without participation of local people, all initiatives seems to fail in the practice level.

We have a long time history of practices volunteerism. Volunteerism occurs from heart and it works effectively to uproot the real causes! Many of us realised that the volunteerism is hardly found in the recent days due to institutionalisation of social works. Definition of volunteerism has been changed and now it is a lucrative profession now a days! Time is changing, so we must change as per demand of time! Great! We have changed before the time!

Across a Occean of silence! against institutionalisation of social work, a few youths inherit the tradition of Bangladesh and burning some lights for these distressed children through practicing historical and traditional volunteerism. They works from hearts, not as a profession! So, it works!

I saw one day in 2002 that one of my younger friend is trying to provide education to a few children of Payarabugh Slum. But the children including their parent do not show interest in getting education. So, we tried to understand their minds and heart. And we prepared a plan to implement a integrated family development programme. Under this programme, with all our limitations, we gave financial supports to the parent of these children to start a small shop or buy a sewing machine and advises them to send their children at school.  We also began to ask local communities to provide food these children in their respective family festival to make attractive the school to the children. increasing the number of student in the school, we felt a crucial financial difficulties to continue the school programme. So, we made a plan to manage financial supports from local elites by child sponsorship in name of Swapno Mother Manush Hobo Campaign  and we got a small supports from local communities at very beginning! Continueing the campigan, we got an inspiring support from local communities and media; The school is running quitely and 142 slum children are getting education and mid-day meal.

In the web, everyday I searched innovative ideas and people who dreams to act fruitfully for the social causes. I found some of them like Bhalobashar Batighar, Meghna Par Dhibor Bidya Niketon and  Jago Foundation. Inspiration came from these initiative to make a catalog of volunteerism in Bangladesh to inspire more youths to engage them in social work as a responsible amateur’s.

To establish the rights of disadvantageous children, these volunteer should unite to act together; that’s why this open discussion article has been written. Dear Friends, please take in part of discussion and inform your ideas to the world. Hope, together we can make a better planet!  

   

2 Years of Online Knowledge Centre [OKCentre]

Hearing a silent cry from one of my schoolmate about non-professional and inhuman treatment of micro-credit organisation, I posted my first article on 08 November 2007 in this blog asking him to be self-employed persons rather continuing  hard job like loan installment collection. The journey began as an amateur blogger just 2 years ago. I heard this silent cry in my heart in every steps from every persons who are employed to be survive destroying own dignity and honor which for we are working long hours for long days.

The second post on Accountability Charter of Local Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) came to this blog after a six months interval. During that time, I worked at a local NGO network and as per ongoing activities, we conducted a national convention on Institutional Governance of Local NGOs and an accountability charter were developed, the post were nothing but the charter. 

Later, I posted only news related to development issues like agriculture, food security, public financing and public services, environment and climate changes, trade and investment, performances of goverment etc published in diffirent newspaper for updating the social activists and workers on contemprorary issues of development. During the last two years of my blogging, I posted total 334 news update and articles in this blog and total 11,504 visitor visited while 85 readers provided me valuable comments which have inspired me to use this blog as tool of social activism.

The second article I wrote on Public-Private Partnership on 08 June 2008 which were a talk of the town issues in Bangladesh in 2009 during the fiscal budget formulation of Bangaldesh and in the next. Once I heard about a poor women died lack of getting medical facilities in rural villege, it shocked me; And I wrote a very short article on it `A Poor Villeger Died’. 

In the next, in addtion of posting news update, I wrote on contemprorary issues like It is state democracy !;  Privatisation is not Solution; National Budget 2009-10; People Participation in Public Policy; Education Vs Employment; Change We Need, But Climate! National Political Will: We Need It First!; Global Climate Change Debate: Where We are?; Role of IFIs; Climate Change Update; The Paradise Lost; Movement for Complacency not Enough, We Need Integrity; Dreams is becoming Nightmare! Wake Up; Package deal between Bangaldesh and India; Focus on Integrity, Not Lead a life of Indulgence!; International Literacy Day, Again! etc.

From my experiences of social activism, I found that the people particularly the youths of Bangladesh are more creative and questing paths of using their creativity. Most of time, they kept down the hopes due to lack of getting proper guidelines or direction and lack of assistances! Online Knowledge Centre came in this ground in web and changed its focuses. Now I post only the links of news update and give emphasises to inspire the youths by showing them opportunities and creative interventions including  asking them to take a part  in discussion and to join campaign;

Only 3 days ago, aiming to aware and mobilise online youths to act in social causes, we have launched a campaign Climate First! Act Now  asking the readers to sign a petition. Total 51 readers signs the petition till now and you are requested to sign it. Your signature would encourage our youth activists to act more in the social causes.

From begining the journey with the slogan `Together We can Act More’; Now the time to act together. Online Knowledge Centre requires your valuable contribution, advises and suggessions to act more; so that we can say after a year, `together we have made a diffirence!’