It gives me great honour and incessant joy to finally present to you the official 1° Initiative Publication of 2008. Today is October 1st, 2008 – a date to be marked and celebrated years from now. This is our first publication and I strongly believe there will be more to follow.

We’ve taken a theme-base approach to it, and for our debut, we’ve captioned it ‘Finding Tomorrow’. ‘Finding Tomorrow’ is a celebration of youth empowerment and young heroes. 1° Initiative (1di) proudly presents to its enthusiasts a move that salutes those innumerable children who’ve shown us how to smile through the toughest battles of life. It doesn’t take a sweeping revolution to change society; it can start very small and virtually anywhere with a speck of laughter. It can begin at a dilapidated, tin-shed school at the corner of a reeking slum and end up a national award ceremony honouring young achievers.

Because, we believe a dream is all it takes to change the world.

I hope you enjoy going through our efforts. Please overlook the flaws – it has been arranged, designed and worked through by young teenagers, none of whom are above 19 years of age. All suggestions, appreciations and criticisms are welcome.

Thank you for viewing. We love your support!

one-degree-initiative-newsletter-2008

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Yes, it’s been a crazy year! Between successful projects, some disappointments and recruiting of new members – 2007 has been a busy year for us. Although, considering blog updates, the aforementioned statement doesn’t seem very correct. We’d like to apologise! There were some unforseen errors and online issues that needed to be dealt with, and now, we’re back on our feet, updating the blog.

What We Did for 2007:
1. Field trip to the slum school in Agargaon, run by Afzalunnessa Foundation
2. Recruiting new memebers
3. Buying new clothes for children from Ahsania Mission for Eid-ul-Fitr
4. Working with Acid Survivors’ Foundation (ASF) and creating awareness against acid violence
5. Selling CRP cards
6. Collecting funds for Sidr victims and utilising the money for buying warm clothes and baby food
7. Distributing new sweaters to kids from Afzalunnessa School in Agargaon, in collaboration with Drishtipat

1di would like to thank everyone who year 2007 a success. Without cooperation and understanding, none of this would’ve been achieved.

We look forward to an exciting and active year 2008!

Happy New Year!

 1di collaborated with Drishtipat Canada this December for their “Sweater for a Smile” project. The plan was to combine funds and buy new sweaters for little children. Between a short time string and Eid-ul-Azha, we finally managed to see it through.

On 18th December 2007, Zubair Idris and Aaqib F. Hossain (representing 1di) with Sumaiya Sharmeen (representing Drishtipat Canada) went to a slum school, located in Agargaon. The school was a project run by Afzalunnessa Foundation (one of the many organizations that we’ve worked with in the past) and the authorities were excited to help us out.

This project would not have been possible without Drishtipat’s cooperation. 1di would like to thank Sumaiya Sharmeen and others from Drishtipat. We’re also grateful to Dr. Nizam (Director, Afzalunnessa Foundation), Rasheda Aunty (Principal, Agargaon School), the teachers from the school for their time and help, and the kids – for their wonderful smiles!

1di stepped up during the crisis of Sidr Cyclone in Bangladesh. We made 100 Taka receipts, which we sold to fellow students and others. With the collected funds, we bought blankets and warm clothes for the affected population. Our donations will reach out to people from Madaripur and Baagerhut on the northern regions of the country.

Thanks to everybody who helped us to raise such a large amount of money in such a short time. 1di is grateful to:
Fardeen A. Kamal, for his brilliant “marketing” skills;
Shahriar Matin, for taking our donations to the right people;
Rubel Bhai from the photocopy shop at 9/A Dhanmondi, for making slip books containing receipts on a short notice; and
Everybody to contributed to the cause

Photo By: Niloy

The kids from CRP (Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed) are trained to draw using their mouth (mouth-painters) and come up with some amazing artwork. CRP prints greeting cards out of their paintings and sells them to visitors for benefit of the organization and its patients.

1dI, in an attempt to contribute and applaud their efforts boughts a total of 150 cards from CRP. In turn, we sold these cards to others, so that the money which is collected from total sales can be used to sponsor somebody’s education or donated to another community-welfare organization.

Our plan is to contribute to both CRP and the other organization.

1dI collaborated with Mastermind Community Service Club (MMCSC) for the Adult Literacy project. The aim was to provide basic education to the helping staff of Mastermind Junior Section (and in future, Middle Section and Senior Section). We taught basic arithmetic and communicative English, and it has been one of our most memorable projects.

Selected students from MMCSC and 1dI members studying in Mastermind took part in this project. As Project Leader, I’d like to thank them all for their time, effort, patience and enthusiasm. This project would have been incomplete without you. Thanks a bunch!

Teaching Staff:
1. Sabhanaz Rashid Diya (Project Leader)
2. Zubair Idris
3. Tushmit M. Hasan
4. Amreen Rahman
5. Mayeesha Azhar
6. Samiha T. Chowdhury
7. Subaha Akram Hossain
8. Akhlak Bin Aziz
9. Armin Zaman Khan
10. Samana

The classes were very interesting and interactive. We were lucky to get a very excited, curious and wonderful batch of students; who supported our cause throughout the course. The project ran for 3 months (April-June ‘07). We held General Knowledge/Q-&-A classes, where we encouraged our students to ask us any questions. It was an amazing experience and I believe we learnt as much from them as we taught them!

We discussed the following at the last meeting on 28.03.2007:

1. Updates on Adult Literacy Project

2. All members have been given 15 CRP cards. The bigger cards will be sold for 30Tk. each and the smaller ones for 20Tk. each. Last date for completion of sales is 14th April, 2007. All members are to send their sales reports at the 1dI email address by 15th April.

3. Plans to go to Afzalunnesa Foundation on Saturday

4. Member profiles to be gmailed at 1dI email address ASAP!

This is the last meeting until June 15th. Please keep in touch with us through the email addresses. Have fun!

Adult Literacy campaign, started by Mastermind students under MMCSC.

Selling cards from CRP (Centre of Rehabilitations of the Paralyzed)

Lighting the Faces of Bangladesh
A few days back, a little kid was given a printed photo of himself by one of our members. He was ecstatic! The way the ten-taka print lighted up the kid’s face showed just how easy it is to bring a smile in a face that hardly gets to smile and how easy it is to make someone feel special.

So in one fine 1° Initiative meeting, we took up this project. We’ll go to little kids, take their photos, print them and then give it to them. Thinking that this little photo would be something the little kid will cherish, stare at every night and treasure as something that’s probably the one of the most precious things he owns… makes us feel very warm and fuzzy inside!

What we’re really doing is that we’re giving these little kids something that they’ll cherish; something that’ll tell them they matter too. And even if it’s none of that, we just LOVE the way a simple ten-taka print can bring such beautiful smiles to faces that hardly ever gets to smile.

We set up a blog, where we’ll put up the photos of the kids, happy and smiling or grinning, as they hold up their photos right after we give it to them.

http://facesofbangladesh.blogspot.com/

Yay, our member Aaqib just turned 18! I’m not sure if he’s gonna be happy if he sees this; but what-the-Hell, HAPPPPPYYYYYYY BIRTHDAY, man! Legal to booze! =P

Throughout November and December, we worked on our Winter Clothes Collection project. After collecting a decent total of approximately 650 clothes, we sent it off to Chhinnamukul for distribution. The NGO distributed the clothes in Kurigram, and now we’ve got the photos of the clothes being distributed!