Nourish Bangladesh is excited to present the Zakat Campaign. Our three implementing partners, Bidyanondo, B Desh Foundation, and Al-Zahoor Welfare Foundation, not only passed our rigorous vetting process but also offer a wide variety of important uses of your Zakat funds. It includes purchasing assets (e.g. livestock or sewing machines), providing business capital, and offering cash assistance to the economically disadvantaged. We are also able to direct your Zakat towards helping the Rohingya refugees. Our top priority remains making certain that your Zakat funds are used timely, cost-effectively, and conscientiously.
On Monday, March 22, 2021, a fire ripped through a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Initial reports indicate the fire left 15 dead, as many as 400 people missing, hundreds injured, and over 50,000 people without homes. This comes on top of the ethnic cleansing that drove some 723,000 Rohingya Refugees to Bangladesh in August of 2017 and the recent military coup in Myanmar.
People in Bangladesh were looking ahead to a bright future for their country, on the heels of a decade of remarkable economic growth. But they now find themselves in the midst of an unprecedented global crisis. Ramifications of the Covid-19 pandemic reach deep and were made only worse by Cyclone Amphan in May 2020 and then the devastating floods since July, putting Bangladesh on the brink of a severe humanitarian crisis. Many have lost their livelihoods during the lockdown, and significant parts of the population are at risk of possible starvation. They need our help, urgently.
We are a diverse international group of volunteers fundraising for Bangladesh, to help them fight hunger as they deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, an event we truly hope remains as rare if not rarer than once in a hundred years.
In addition to raising awareness and collecting donations, we care deeply about making the most of a donor’s money. So we have convened a team of students, academics, a professor specializing in economic development, and individuals with ground experience volunteering in Bangladesh to research and thoroughly vet NGOs and grassroots volunteer groups on behalf of the donors.
I have known Professor Faress Bhuiyan for a decade and during that time have witnessed his ability to deftly navigate Bangladeshi and US American contextual realities in his work and personal life, be it through taking US American students to BD on educational programs, conducting research in economic development, caring for his parents who have crossed these borders many times. He and his team are extremely well-positioned to understand the ground conditions in BD and to communicate the urgency of the needs to those of us in a position to help out. There are so many needs in our world, especially now, but the need for physical nourishment is basic and universal. If you can, I encourage you to give generously to this effort.
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