"Hello apa, I don't need any food. It's just my baby is starving. It needs some powder milk, even cow milk will do! Can you arrange some?" Out of hundreds of phone calls she receives everyday, this remains the most harrowing exhibition of distressed voice fervently longing for some aid. The coronavirus pandemic, like the whole world, has brought Bangladesh to a standstill. As the whole country effectively going through a lockdown phase, lower class and lower middle class sections of people are finding it difficult to arrange a minimal meal even once a day. This poor section across Dhaka have recently found some hope in someone -- someone who goes by the name 'Ekjon Bangladesh,' responding to their desperate call for aid. Who is this Ekjon Bangladesh?
Nafisa Anzum Khan, who has recently gone viral for her humanitarian work, is one of the many people's champions that this epidemic crisis has produced. She has been relentlessly providing significant amount of food stuffs to people who are in miserable situation due to this ongoing lockdown. The generous gesture that she made on March 27 by distributing small packages of food among 800 children of her own 'Pathashishu School' in Mohammadpur, has now become a regular endeavour for aiding distressed humanity. Since the beginning of this benevolent effort, Nafisa has helped more than 1,500 families.
Like the scent of perfume spreads quickly through air, smile on a human face is pervasive similarly. After delivering each package of food stuff, wide smile on receiver's face instantly infuse happiness in Nafisa. "I wish I could help the whole 170 million people of the country," thinks Nafisa after seeing the grateful smiles on their faces. Finding joy in aiding fellow humans is an intrinsic quality of her. She likes to help with whatever she can afford and she has been doing this for quite some time now.
Nafisa Anjum Khan with her vehicle to distribute food reliefs in and around Dhaka
Nafisa has always been sensitive to people's misery. Her empathy grew to a whole new level while she was doing her graduation. Each street children selling flower, garland, chocolate or other fancy goods-- stirred her emotions up. She always cherished that someday she could help them. Finally on last year, she saw her dream came true when her two schools for street children, one in Mohammadpur and the other in Kamrangirchar, began operation officially. Unconventional in nature, both the schools impart knowledge of morality, ethics, dignity, along with basic education among the unprivileged children. The two campuses have a total of more than three thousand students. Her present aid activities also originated from here.
"I don't believe in deposit. Whatever be the amount, I expend the money left in my hand to help people. I sold my gold chain, a gift from my uncle to buy mats for my schools," said Nafisa. Her passionate tone reiterated her noble intentions vividly. Just a few days prior to the implementation of an unofficial countrywide lockdown, she got three months' salary in advance from her current workplace, an Australia based multinational company. Being effectively in house arrest, she thought, the money would be of no use for some time. So, why not to use that money to help the poor students?
Nafisa bought huge amount of food stuffs and other necessary things with her own savings and three months' salary. She made gift packages with rice, pulse, oil, salt, potato, onion, orange, biscuit and Paracetamol and celebrated her 27th birthday on March 27 by distributing these packages among 800 children. She also convened people via Facebook to take away the remaining packages. That day, she got hundreds of phone calls from people who needed them or could deliver them to the needy ones.
Apart from these calls, numerous people including her friends, relatives and senior colleagues from her previous workplace, Grameenphone call centre -- showed interest to help her. She humbly requested all to send food stuffs instead, so that the process remains transparent. She is even ready to let people distribute their donations by themselves with her. About 400 families got aid in the first phase.
As people faced difficulty to reach her for food, Nafisa decided to reach them by herself. So she began to use her family owned CNG auto-rickshaw. To avoid any trouble from law enforcement forces, she made a banner with the name ‘Ekjon Bangladesh’ and her own personal contact number. She posted a photo of the banner on Facebook and out of her wildest imagination-- that post was shared more than 30 thousand times. The number of phone calls increased so much that she has to keep it active for a scheduled period now, from 11 am at morning to 7 pm at the evening. Within this period, she and her team receives more than 500 calls.
The news of Nafisa's aid activities is spreading like wildfire through the Facebook.As of now, she is serving 150 to 200 people everyday. But, she is preparing to serve a thousand at least from the next week onward. Some of her neighbours including housewives, students, garment workers, CNG drivers have joined her to carry out this ever growing task. They all are picking up phone calls as per schedule and telling people to text their whereabouts if they need help. After 7 pm, they all sit together, note down all the information from the text messages and determine which area to go for distribution the next day.
Nafisa's aid work is a dynamic process. There is no halt in this. She wants people to collaborate with her in this process not with money, but food and delivery. Also, there are many organisations who are distributing food among the poorer sections could collaborate with her. "It doesn't have to be me who distributes the food. I've formatted data about who needs aid and how much. They can collect information from me and distribute by their own," said Nafisa on collaboration with other organisations.
While Nafisa is flooded with love and appreciation for her courage to fight the crisis, there are some drawbacks as well she is facing. She has been denying financial help from the outset, except from that of Tamim Iqbal's contribution who could not send food because of transportation problem, there are some instances of people embezzling money by using her name and their own bKash or rocket accounts. Also, people keep complaining about her contact number being busy. "I am a single entity and I simply can't take all the phone calls," she said while regretting about people's sentiment.
To do something good, one does not have to be someone very famous or rich-- Nafisa is a glaring example of that statement. She hopes that Covid-19 will disappear soon. However, she wishes to continue her aiding activities even after the lockdown ends. She wants to pick some impoverished families which do not have any other alternative than begging and bear their daily life expenditure. She also desires to make a living place for her students. What she has done individually till now, makes it safe to assume that she will reach her destination one day by hook or by crook. Neither money nor fame-- but the desire to assist the fellow beings and educate the unprivileged children-- pushes her to go beyond her limit everyday with courage and love.
Mohammad Saiful Islam is an MSS student of Mass Communication and Journalism at Dhaka University. He can be reached at [email protected]
