Home: Banganga, Kapilvastu, Lumbini
Education: B. Sc. (Biological Science), Asian University for Women, Bangladesh
You wake up early morning and hear your dad saying over the phone “Beta, I’m doing well, you need to keep up your hard work.” You want to ask, “Dad! Are you really alright, there?” However, you become numb and carefully weight on every words your dad has pronounced. It then becomes your power and your strength to rise up again although you don’t know what’s next. The process then continues. That’s how my life was like while living on a foreign land.
Asian University for Women (AUW), in Bangladesh, the university where I completed undergraduate degree from on a full scholarship, was more like an ideal world. Although I missed family often and it put me down especially during festivals, I felt so much relieved when I didn’t have to remind my parents about my tuition fee. I didn’t need to worry about payment to be made for using internet or the library. Despite each of our (AUW students) differences, AUW was home away from home. We were unique with our challenges and therefore our choices, yet we were there for each other. Besides academics, I even explored my potentials in Basketball, speech competition as well as a project on training need assessment under the mentorship and assistance from the Head of Human Resource Department.
Life after graduation was a great transition for me. As I came home, things didn’t remain the same as they were five years ago. I was worried about my career goals as well as my responsibilities towards my family. I wanted direction for myself and luckily I came across Lean In, a book by Sheryl Sandberg; a gift that my mentor had given during my internship. There the writer says, life is not a ladder, it’s a jungle gym. You might not always get what you want, but you will learn from all those experiences. Thus, I’ve started taking every challenge as opportunity and every new experience as a blessing. I’ve realized that the strongest people I’ve met have not been given an easy life. An example is my own dad! My dad started earning at the age of 12. He has been working very hard since then and doing his best to educate us and keep us safe.
Maybe I have started following my dad’s path, maybe I want to push my own comfortable zone and maybe I want to have positive impacts on many lives as a teacher. I can’t think of specific reasons for joining TFN. Dream I wanted to make alive and the reality I have to live with are two different roads. But I believe, TFN is a common ground and a great platform to know myself and how far I can reach. I don’t know how the journey will be like but I am confident it will surely make me happy and content.
