Anti-poverty campaign
I am in receipt of a copy of Choyon - a tri-monthly magazine (July-September 2008 issue) edited by Poet Lily Haq. I am not sure about the spelling of her name, though.
It now appears to me a critical mass of the magazine has apparently been created with products (essay, short stories, poems) of a number of promising literary personalities of Bangladesh.
The focus of above products was multi-disciplinary in nature and scope - ranging from gender biases and inadequacies associated with the country's social, as well as criminal justice system; to Eid reunions and sweet reminiscences; to attempts towards capturing one's own past in pursuits of taking a pause from the moving reality (Dr. Jahan Ara), to interactive virtual discussions, to love and emotion, to nature, and to other things perceived or sensed or felt or internalised otherwise by contemporary human systems (used in a medical sense) of relevant contributors - relative, however, to time, space and other variables. The bottom line is: good effort towards creating an interface between self and surroundings in the search of happiness and welfare - both finite and infinite, per se.
Interesting though, a part of the magazine deals with inter alia pieces of news reflecting on activities pertaining to distribution of happiness among all stakeholders of Choyon and Lily Haq foundation (including inter alia poor Bangladeshis) - - via assisting for example, the stakeholders, who are poor, in their effort towards improving the quality of life and towards liberating themselves from clutches of poverty. The activities of Choyon literature club and Lily Haq foundation - at present, in a limited way, though - focusing on for example: sustainable livelihoods, helping the poor to acquire assets, educational assistance to poor children, health care assistance to the poor, and distribution of winter cloths to the poor bear testimony to the good work. The bottom line is: literature in anti-poverty action.
The examples of Choyon and others in creating, sustaining and promoting choices for Bangladeshi poor and other disadvantaged people tend to suggest, among other things, there is - at least at this point in time - no apparent shortage of anti-poverty windows in Bangladesh. But one of the present day challenges, in that respect, is: how best and quickest Bangladesh, friends of Bangladesh (including inter alia the US, Saudi Arabia, the UK, the EU), neighbours of Bangladesh (including inter alia India, Pakistan, Myanmar) and others (including the World Bank, the UN, Saarc) could create enabling environments for say, local anti-poverty entities - both existing and evolving - in pursuits of enhancing anti-poverty interplays between and among them and mainstreaming resultant gains in, for example, national and sub-regional anti-poverty programmes and outcomes for ensuring a continually incremental and sustainable impact on life and living of poor people of Bangladesh and the world at large.
The last word: the present day anti-poverty opportunities lie in inter alia giving - at the soonest and in a result-oriented manner - a more prominent anti-poverty face - than the existing one - to engineering and technology in pertinent areas.
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