Bridges, Not Borders with Bangladesh and Bhutan held Successfully
People across the world are more linked than ever before because of the internet and technology. It is now much simpler to connect with individuals from all around the world without leaving the house. In reality, teens are engaging with individuals from various and foreign countries via social media platforms, online gaming, various forums, and so on. It would be an understatement to say that this culture of cultural awareness and acceptance is a miracle. The key to eliminating racism, stereotyped attitudes, and xenophobia lie behind the layers of interaction and collaboration. “Bridges, Not Borders” is more than simply a strong program for bringing together different nationalities; it is also a method of forming new connections and maybe even acquaintances. As the name implies, the program allows a group of people from two different countries to take a three-week course. Each week brings a new set of values to the table for both countries, allowing them to know each other better. Our most recent class had ten enthusiastic young souls from Bangladesh and Bhutan. “Bridges, Not Borders” greatly values diversity acceptance and, as a result, offered a chance for Bangladeshis and Bhutanese to build relationships. The event lasts for three weeks with a plethora of various activities. In the first week, the participants broke their ice by introducing themselves to each other, having a casual chat about their interests and hobbies, and having an interactive discussion about Diversity, Acceptance, and Creating Bonds. The second week allowed the participants to get to know other cultures in a more detailed fashion. The participants gave a brief presentation about their and the collaborating country’s history, culture, attire, and others with the help of vivid imagery and narration. Besides representing their own countries, they experienced a session by Sir Mong Mong Sho, a visual artist, Lecturer at Yunnan Arts University who presented some of his paintings and encouraged the participants to enhance their creativity. The closing ceremony of the event was even more thrilling as we got the opportunity to have His Excellency Mr. Rinchen Kuentsyl, the Ambassador of Bhutan to Bangladesh as our Chief Guest and Mrs. Eeshita Azad, Chair of Board, RT, and Mr. Yusuf Munna, Founder and Executive Director, RT as our Special Guest. His Excellency Mr. Rinchen Kuentsyl reflected on the bonding and friendship of Bangladesh and Bhutan through his valuable speech. We also had Mr. Rigsar Wangchuk, Program Officer, BCMD, Bhutan, who took a fifteen minutes session for our participants focusing on the meaning of Reflective Teens and Bhutanese culture. The one-month-long Cross-Culture Exchange Event was concluded with valuable words from our Chair of Board, Mrs. Eeshita Azad, and Founder and Executive Director of Reflective Teens, Mr. Yusuf Munna. Author: Asif Zubayer, Executive member & Ruthmila Haider Chy, Program Coordinator, Bridges, Not Borders; RT
Adolescents’ Mental Health: Care to Remove the Barrier?
Despite knowing the importance of mental issues in other countries there is a high prevalence in Bangladesh regarding depression and anxiety among adolescents. Surprisingly, there are not even sufficient case studies for any mental health concerns in Bangladesh because of the negligence of teenagers’ psychological conditions.
Wellbeing Sessions at Reflective Teens; Because We Are A Family before an Organisation
It has been more than a year since the Covid-19 pandemic has hit and changed the course of the world that we live in. However, life has to still go on. Of course, how we live and work now is different than before but we all still have dreams and responsibilities. Reflective Teens has been working to fulfill its main goal of fostering the creative abilities of teenagers for a better and brighter future even during the pandemic. Although online, the amount of effort put in by everyone working in Reflective Teens is more than ever before and the results prove it. That being said, the members of Reflective Teens are themselves all young people with their own share of struggles and journeys that they are on. The pandemic is not easy on the members too. Working remotely is not easy. Staying connected online is not easy. So how do we find that balance in helping the youths around us while also not neglecting our own team members? It is through this question that the wellbeing session was developed. Different from other work-related meetings that Reflective Teens have, the wellbeing session is a way of staying in touch, a way of checking up on each other and a way of empowering ourselves together. The wellbeing sessions happen at least once a month and are open for all working members of Reflective Teens. To ensure that we are focusing on both mental and physical health, the session has various segments that cater to both such as yoga, meditation and etc. A safe space is established in all sessions to ensure that the members can feel safe, free and comfortable. Likewise, time is allocated for everyone to share updates about their lives, their journeys and the future that they are envisioning. A segment of congratulating and expressing gratitude to each other is also designed to create a healthy relationship amongst each other. Sometimes, we play team building games and other times, we journal together. Through such a wellbeing session, the members of Reflective Teens have been able to connect on a deeper level and such a connection has helped increase the quality and productivity of work done by the team. New members are also able to join in and grow closer with the older members through the informal wellbeing session. As Reflective Teens keep growing bigger, it will never forget to prioritise the wellbeing of its members. Because, Reflective teens is not just an organisation and the goal is not only to be a formal organisation. We are a family and we want to continue being a big and supportive family. — Author: Regita Gurung, Head of People, Reflective Teens.
Breaking Traditional Notions and Labels – A Discussion on Social Entrepreneurship and Public Services
Saturday, 5th June 2021, was the day for the General Meeting for the core Executive Members and the honorable Advisory Board Members of Reflective Teens. The Executive Team invited Ms. Fahmida Suma, the Co-Founder and Chair of a social enterprise in Jessore and a Senior Officer working under the Australian Federal Government, to speak about being a woman in social entrepreneurship and public services. The meeting began with Ms. Eeshita Azad – the Non-Executive Chair of Reflective Teens- officiating and greeting the members present. Among the Board Members, Ms Warda Ashraf, Mr Mushfique Ahmed and Mr Kazi Monirul Kabir were present to connect with the Executive Members of Reflective Teens and hear from Ms. Fahmida Suma. Ms. Fahmida Suma began with a brief background of her journey from her early teen days in Australia where she worked several part-time jobs to her working for the Australian Government and starting her dream project. From an early age, she had a great amount of love for the people that made her instinctively donate whatever she could from her house. This love grew with time. However, even though through her growing phase she faced various difficulties in her personal life, she worked hard to pursue her education and her dream. She expressed, ‘Through my difficult time, never once did I think of quitting.’ When she was busy building her life, she always had a nagging feeling of not doing enough for the people. Hence, she moved to Bangladesh for a few months to explore her love of the people and her opportunities. Not long after that, she planned and built her organization, IMatter, which was to be a safe space for the young, aged, and underprivileged surrounded by nature to come together and build a more fulfilling life. She explained that sustainable organizations are a necessity because as the priorities of a charitable organization change, its funds diminish rather radically. And when the aim is to support people, income-generating opportunities to fund at least their basic necessities are important. As an example, she described how IMatter has set the momentum to set up series of cafes, tailoring shops, handicraft businesses to fund their projects and further employ those in need. She voiced her belief ‘I wish to break free from the labels, traditional notions, and taboos society binds people with so that we learn from and help one another no matter who we are. This is why she chose not to pay heed to the daunting words of others who called her unwoman-like for not exactly fitting into the expectations she was ‘supposed to fulfill as a woman and dived into helping people as much as possible. She claims that public service and social entrepreneurship have helped her not only be a comfort for her soul but also become comfortably financially independent rather than falling under the neo capitalistic concept of continuously improving one’s living standards. Throughout the discussion, all the members interacted actively with Ms. Fahmida Suma by appraising her brave encounters as well as asking questions to understand better. To a question raised about the fear of failing by a member, Ms. Warda Ashraf, long term friend of Ms. Fahmida Suma, answered to be grateful for however little achievement we gain. She explained how important it is to take the failures as a learning and keep moving forward. Ms. Fahmida Suma ended her inspiring tale by expressing the need to give oneself time and not being too harsh on oneself for not achieving everything one planned to.
Bridges Not Borders; Cross-Culture Exchange Program between Bangladesh and Tajikistan
Cherishing the aim of exposing young people to diversity and create tolerance towards differences among individuals of all sorts from background, races, and nationalities, RT team’s Bridges, Not Borders hosted a virtual cross-culture exchange program between Bangladesh and Tajikistan. This was a three-week-long program with two sessions per week with 1st week being orientation and workshop week. The two sessions consist of a formal meet and greet, ice-breaking sessions where participants from both countries had a pleasant time knowing each other and about what the program will offer in the upcoming weeks. The event started with the orientation session on 12th March 2021. 2nd week’s sessions which were the main highlight of the whole event happened on 19th and 20th March respectively where all the participants presented idiosyncratic cultural heritage, lifestyle, peoples, and many more aspects throughout the video and slide presentation. Participants also made a presentation on their recommended books, films, places, etc for each other. Everyone was humble and had an ongoing constructive conversation about the presentation which made this 2-week session the most interactive session of the whole program. And later in the 5th session, the concept was swapped and the participants had to present a creative piece based on any topics like paintings, digital art, animation, writings, poetry related to the converse team. The way each participant represented the opposite team’s culture and traditions was truly marvelous. This session marked the unity we created throughout the program and emphasized the creativity of each individual and enlightens one’s worldviews as a well-balanced world will accept different opinions and reduce fears towards differences. On 27th March which was the very last session of the event is the one where everyone truly thoroughly enjoyed the session. The last day of the session was arranged that reflects a cultural night where each individual displayed their talents. The participants left no crumbs left to exhibit their creative skills with some sharing their self-written poems or others showing their singing skills & also one participant shared a parody song that had recipes of some Tajikistan famous food. There was indeed no lack of entertainment. But due to the short timeframe, the whole program had come to an end with participants expressing and sharing the precious experience that they had throughout the program. The virtual cross-cultural exchange program has provided young people an incredible and rare opportunity to not only gain insight into a very different culture but to practice their skills in effective communication, lead a conversation with a respectful mindset, and most importantly giving & receiving various opinions. The participants learned a lot about not only other cultures but also gain a deeper insight into their own respective cultural heritage. The participants have eventually created a beautiful bond and friendship through this program maintaining both inclusivity and diversity.
Intro to FinTech and Leadership Via General Meeting
On 7th March 2021, a General Meeting of Executive Team Members and honorable Board members was held. The meeting had two broad discussion topics, namely Financial Technology and Leadership. Among the respected Board Members, Mr. Mushfique Ahmed, Ms. Warda Ashraf, and Ms. Fahmida Suma were present to connect with the Executive Team. The meeting was officiated by Mr. Yusuf Munna, the CEO, and Founder of Reflective Teens. The discussion was begun by Mr. Mushfique Ahmed asking the members what they knew of FinTech, the rapidly growing industry. Mr. Mushfique Ahmed is the digital and disruptive technology leader at EY MENA and is also the co-founder of a Fintech startup that is democratizing real estate investing for the masses, through a regulated real estate investment platform. As an expert in this field, Mr. Mushfique Ahmed gladly introduced the Executive Members to the fundamentals of FinTech while discussing the member’s own knowledge in the field and drawing from real-life examples to explain the simple procedure, advantages, and disadvantages of FinTech. The discussion then moved forward to be led by Ms. Warda Ashraf to educate the members about leadership. Ms. Warda Ashraf is a development practitioner and a social worker who has experience of more than 7 years of working in Youth Leadership, among many other areas of work. She first gave the floor to the members to explain their understanding of leadership skills and being a good leader versus a dictator. As the discussion deepened, being a specialist in this niche, she pointed out important characteristics of a leader and how leadership roles have evolved through the years. Throughout the discussion, the Board Members actively engaged to provide their opinions and share personal experiences related to the topic. The Executive Team Members were overjoyed at having the opportunity to learn from the adept and knowledgeable people in their domain and expressed their wish for future sessions. The meeting ended with a brief Q/A session and an expression of gratitude among all.
Design Thinking for Social Innovation – RT Brainery: Episode 3
Reflective Teens initiated its journey to provide a platform for teenagers to express their ideas and their skills. Such ambitious goals require direct buildup from the ground level, and with that aim to improve teenagers’ skills in this country, RT Brainery was launched. Following the success of RT Brainery Episode 2, the overall program’s scale and aim increased, and a dedicated development and management team was deployed for this program. The 4 weeks long weekend program started on 5th February 2021 with expert trainer, Mustafezur Rahman who is well known for being a trainer in design thinking. The participants got to learn design thinking through direct interaction with Mustafezur Rahman on a Zoom video call. The program went on for 4 weeks, every Friday and Saturday. Students also demonstrated their practical skills through various class works as requested by the trainer. Constant tech support was also available. Students learned aspects of problem identification, ideation, critical thinking, collaboration, solution testing, and feedback generation during the classes. They received training regarding the application of design thinking in our everyday life. Overall, it was yet another worthy addition to the portfolio of RT Brainery, something that we hope will lead to the generation of more and more skilled teenagers in this country.
Creator’s Convergence; An Hour with Adnan Mukit
Every creation has a unique backend story and RT Creators’ Convergence works to spread that story among the teenagers. In this event, directors, photographers or other creative artists talk about their life, creative works, and answer the questions of the aspiring teenagers. In this episode, we had writer Adnan Mukit as our guest. The event was held on 29th January 2021. The program began at 6:30 PM and lasted till 7:30, making it an hour with Adnan Mukit. Aanushka Mehjabin, Executive Member of Reflective Teens acted as the host for this event. At the beginning of the interview, our guest was introduced to the audience and he then talked a bit about himself that worked to lighten up the environment and set the mood for the rest of the interview which was relaxed and fun. Then, program continued following a sequential round of questions. The first few questions were asked about his personal life, which included how he discovered his passion and who had the most impact in encouraging him to follow it. The second part consisted of questions about his professional life, the hurdles he faced, how he overcame them and the importance of creators in society. And the final round of the interview comprised of the advices our guest had for young and aspiring writers and creators. Our guest of course kept the environment in a relaxing manner keeping the interview lighthearted and we had a good laugh. Lastly, our meeting was ended with some few jokes by our guest and a goodbye. In essence, it was an educational session that will help aspiring writers to pursue their passions and give them a new perspective in the world of creativity. And the entire event was a success because of the efforts of the RT Creator’s Convergence Team and the members of Reflective Teens as well.
The Story behind Reflective Teens | Overview, History, & Facts
[বাংলা] ১১ বছর বয়সে বাবার কাছে অনুপ্রাণিত হয়ে লেখালেখি শুরু করা ইউসুফ মুন্না মূল ধারার মিডিয়ায় এসে শুধুমাত্র বয়সের কারণে বৈষম্যের স্বীকার হয়। নিজের স্কলারশিপ স্টাইপেন্ড আর টিফিনের বাঁচানো টাকা দিয়ে শুরু করে কিশোরদের জন্য বিশেষায়িত ওয়েবম্যাগাজিন রিফ্লেক্টিভ টিনস, পরবর্তীতে যা কিশোরদের সৃজনশীলতার প্রকাশ, বিকাশ ও পরিচর্যার উন্মুক্ত প্ল্যাটফর্ম হিসেবে রূপ পায়, অর্জন করে দেশব্যাপী জনপ্রিয়তা ও বিভিন্ন আন্তর্জাতিক স্বীকৃতি। ২০১৩ সালে যাত্রা শুরু করে, বিগত ৮ বছরে দেশ ও বিদেশের শীর্ষস্থানীয় শিক্ষা, প্রযুক্তি ও সামাজিক ব্যক্তিত্বদের নিয়ে গঠিত কার্যকরী বোর্ডের দিক-নির্দেশনায় সমগ্র বিশ্বব্যাপী ছড়িয়ে থাকা ৫০ জন কিশোর-তরুনের এই দল ৪ টি নিয়মিত প্রোগ্রামের (ওয়ার্কশপ, নেটওয়ার্কিং ও মেন্টরশিপ ইভেন্ট, ক্রস-কালচারাল এক্সচেঞ্জ ও সচেতনতামূলক আয়োজন) মাধ্যমে প্রায় ৪৭,০০০ কিশোরদের সংযুক্ত করেছে। —– [English] Reflective Teens is a group of young adults working for flourishing the creativity of teenagers and helping them prepare for the present and the future through proper utilization of their creative abilities. However, the long 8 years of RT had begun due to the love of writing one teenager had and his experiences related to his passion. Yusuf Munna had discovered his talent and enthusiasm for writing at a very young age, inspired by his father. He continued reading and writing for years working to develop his skills. He even went further to submit his writings in various media platforms like newspapers and magazines to be published. Despite being persistent and hopeful, all his efforts to publish his writing were being sent to vain. Being daunted and almost at the verge of losing his confidence, one of Yusuf’s seniors introduced him to a writer in a newspaper who expressed his interest in Yusuf’s writings. With no ray of hope, Yusuf sent an old writing from his enormous pile of work which he had previously submitted to innumerable institutions. To his surprise, this time his writing was immediately published; even though he had submitted similar writings to the same institution before. Yusuf Munna realized the power of connection for the first time. He spoke to a few of his writer friends from school only to realize that almost everyone had faced similar situations. This group of young teenagers came to acknowledge the fact that in mainstream media the path to success for new creative individuals is full of toilsome hurdles. In an effort to create more opportunities, at least for their fellows, these teenagers settled to form a web magazine. Albeit the technological boom in early 2010s, because of which Yusuf and his friends wanted to form a web magazine rather than a physical one, the technological advancement had not reached everyone at the same rate as today. Yusuf neither had the knowledge of forming a website nor any access to the internet; only the passion to do something right. With money he had saved from his allowance, Yusuf learned WordPress through YouTube in a nearby cybercafé and bought a domain to finally structure the web magazine in 2013. With the simple yet unyielding motto ‘of the Teens, by the Teens and for the Teens’ – adopted from Abraham Lincoln’s speech – the web magazine grew both quantitively and qualitatively. Besides writing, the magazine published other creative works like paintings, photographs etc. The magazine, which popularized in their school, began receiving submissions from peers in other schools; even a few from outside the country. However, the hard truth hit them one day that the web magazine was also based on connections and did not eliminate the root cause of the issue which was their initial aim. They moved out of the sole concentration on the web magazine and designed the very first program named RT Talks – a talk sessions. RT then received some media coverage that brought attention to them in terms of participants, supporters and volunteers. Through slow progress of the years, many new programs were included into the main structure of RT and many were excluded. After 8 years of hard-work, Reflective Teens is a proud team of a few short of 50 young adults with 3 successful main programs running throughout the year, a web magazine, a strong and supportive Board with prestigious figures and thousands of followers. Reflective Teens has been mentioned in a number of media platforms and has also reached many countries worldwide. They believe this is just the beginning of a flourishing journey in store for RT. Even through their success, they stay clear with their initial goal and constantly work to restructure programs in alignment with their core values. The programs of RT focus strictly on effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability among others. Such invaluable works are generated from a team of young individuals who are coherently working together while empathizing with each other and being open to new ideas or arguments. In their workspace, they are deep into being value driven and believe in decentralization of power, hence the lack of strict hierarchy in the team. Reflective Teens has big ambitions but are rooted to the ground with their motto and beliefs. Reflective Teens is a group formed by the realization of struggles of teenagers which is undauntingly working to form a thriving, equitable and inclusive world.
Our ‘Sabalok Golpo’ Experience
The London Borough of Tower Hamlets, in association with School of Drama, Queens Mary University hosts a cultural festival every year, titled ‘A Season of Bangla Drama’. This festival has been celebrating the Bengali culture, in the form of enthralling performances and discussions from a diversified panel of writers, actors, directors and cultural personalities, since 2003. The platform creates an opportunity for UK based audiences to learn more about Bengali culture. This year, due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, the festival was organised online, and the collaboration partner from Bangladesh was Reflective Teens. This creative writing project titled ‘Sabalok golpo – Everyone’s story’ was a unique opportunity for young people from the U.K and Bangladesh to collaborate in a series of workshops, to develop their creative ideas and engage in an exchange of ideas and viewpoints around the theme of ‘Coming of Age’. The group of young people were asked to create a piece of creative writing with formats such as Spoken Word, Poetry etc. of 3-5 minutes each. The two groups from the UK and Bangladesh consisted of 5 young people in each one. On 15th November, all those pieces created by the young people were displayed by a public event hosted on Facebook. The teenagers created dramas, short stories, articles etc. centring the theme ‘Coming of Age’. While the teenagers described what coming of age looks like to them, most of them portrayed the struggles and fears many of them faces while growing up from a child to an adult, and also what makes it interesting. The contents ranged from experiences of growing up in a world of gender inequalities, social ills like child marriages and state failures, responsibilities bestowed after being an adult and the maturity that comes with it. The participants filmed their works, and excellent acting and depiction skills were also seen in some of the performances. An enthusiastic bunch of audience from both UK and Bangladesh were present in the session, and the audience expressed their admiration for the works of those young adults and asked questions based on the pieces that were displayed which were answered by the participants later on. Miss Rokhshana Khan was the collaborator from the UK, and Yusuf Munna, CEO of Reflective Teens, was the one from Bangladesh for the whole programme.