He for she

After being accepted into the VSO ICS programme, I was thrilled to be part of an organisation that focuses on sustainability so strongly.  It was what I hoped to do for a long time ever since I was a child but I was quite apprehensive at the same time.  

One of my friends had already volunteered with the VSO and she told me that my experience in the programme would depend on the in-country staff as they played the most crucial role. She was right and I was lucky. There was a long and busy process between the pre placement and on placement periods and everyone comes across all sorts of barriers on the way. I, as usual, had many - and one of them was serious enough that the in-country manager considered cancelling my departure to Bangladesh only a week before my scheduled flight. I went to great extents to find a way around these difficulties and the in-country staff got in touch with many people on my behalf. Long story short I tried, they tried and eventually between us, we figured it out. When I had a chat with my line manager, he told me he doubted any other in-country manager would spare that much time for my case.

I was finally here and everyone was so welcoming. I could see there were so many cultural differences but there was an obvious effort people put into making things work. I was impressed. ICO (in-country orientation) for all the volunteers started with Bangladesh’s country profile and the nature of the project I’d be working on. This was presented by the in-country manager Simon Brown.. I was terrified by some graphics and statics while being encouraged by some improvement and achievements that have been happening in Bangladesh. Simon walked into the training room with a bag of potatoes and a bag of cooked rice. He used all the visuals efficiently and shared some great stories. There was one thing that struck me during this session was a personal anecdote when he was talking about the desperately high numbers of child marriages that take place in Bangladesh. One day after hearing about another sad child marriage, he looked at the photo on his desk of his nieces and thought it could’ve been them. When he shared this, I could hear his voice cracking a bit. He felt it deeply. Then he added how desperately we needed to change this and raise awareness and educate people to stop child marriages. I was fascinated by his stand, passion and care. I’m glad there are people like Simon who really care about women, children and the world deeply.

This week Simon visited us at our workplace in South Bangladesh. Our groups presented what they’ve done so far and what the next step will be. All the groups did really well and received some motivating feedback. During their presentation, the SRHR group mentioned about how the youth clubs tend to focus on the sports, which traditionally excludes girls. They said they’d like to start a “Girls’ club” and get them involved in different activities rather than just sports as obviously it wouldn’t be appropriate in the communities we are working in. They suggested we could do drama or something similar as an alternative. Simon listened attentively and at the end of the presentation he referred back to this sentence and said “Why not? Bangladesh’s got their national women’s cricket team. Why can’t we initiate this in the rural areas? Can we encourage other girls do sports as well? Wouldn’t that be fair?” For the second time I felt a great deal of respect for him.

Since we came we witnesses so much discrimination and left speechless by the way some women were treated but were told not to react promptly but sensitively through awareness raising and peer education. To overcome gender inequality and stop child marriages, there’s a lot we need to change and perhaps it is a long & bumpy road but essentially we need to change this mentality. For this, I believe, “He for she” is crucial.

After all, feminism doesn’t mean woman’s superiority to man, it means equality.

5th June 2016