Listen to Taufiqur Rahman Khan to learn from our history. In this episode of My MARS mantra podcast, you will learn how to define ourselves as a Bangladeshi Global Citizen, where did our Bengali identity start, what does an independent Bangladesh mean to us and for our future generations. Taufique, a practicing architect, was motivated by the July 2024 Revolution of Bangladesh, to launch his own YouTube channel RoudroRekha. This channel represents oral history of Bangladesh. Taufique was...

My MARS mantra invites Rafia Safa, to celebrate the achievement of July Revolution 2024 in Bangladesh and helps us to understand how people are responding the devastating floods at local level. Rafia is a writer and a business graduate from Chittagong University. Rafia was inspired by her mother’s unfulfilled dreams, to be a liberated writer, and be free like a bird and help others to achieve their dreams. Producer: Zahid Sumon, Music: ⁠এসেইস-Aseis⁠   আমার মঙ্গল মন্ত্রের এই পর্বে আমরা...

Listen to Samira Haider's unique journey transitioning from the corporate world to the humanitarian sector. She discusses the challenges and rewards of leaving successful careers in the private sector to make a meaningful impact through humanitarian and development work. Shamira's insights offer valuable lessons on navigating career shifts, finding purpose, and contributing to global development efforts. Shamira grew up in Bangladesh during the independence war, witnessing her neighbour...

Bijay Kumar is a strong advocate of shifting power from the international system to community-led capacities.Bijay is from Odisha, one of the mineral rich as well as the most disaster-prone regions in India. From his younger years, Bijay was exposed to social inequalities and discrimination. During his childhood, Bijay used to join his civil servant father, vising the tribal communities exploited by the mining industries. After the end of his higher studies in the UK, Bijay was fortunate to...

Katherine is motivated to improve international development projects by capturing hard-learned lessons, to keep the sector relevant in an ever-changing global context. The challenge of working in fast-paced environments helps her to thrive as part of a team working toward a common goal. Katherine is a Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist who lived and worked in Belgium, France, Peru, Ethiopia, Pakistan, the Caribbeans and the U.K., with shorter country missions to Bangladesh, Burkina Faso,...

Yasmin, Saquib and Sonia are proud community architects changing the lives of thousands of slum dwellers in Bangladesh. They have amplified the voices of the marginalised poor people in city planning and policy-making. These young architects were inspired by the vision of Professor Yunus, to see a poverty-free Bangladesh. Their vision is to build a slum-free Bangladesh. And they are already working towards achieving this vision, by working in the slums of Bangladeshi on 'participatory...

বাংলাদেশে কোটা সংস্কার আন্দোলনে অংশগ্রহণকারী ছাত্রছাত্রীদের উপর পুলিশের তীব্র সহিংসতার আমরা তীব্রভাবে নিন্দা জানাই I সরকার কর্তৃক আরোপিত দেশব্যাপী যোগাযোগ মাধ্যম বন্ধের ও আমরা নিন্দা জানাই I আমাদের মঙ্গল মন্ত্র হলো, আমরা একটি গণতান্ত্রিক দেশ দাবি করি যেখানে প্রতিটি নাগরিকের নিরাপত্তা নিশ্চিত করা যায় I

Professor Nabeel Hamdi is a pioneering architect, introducing participatory action planning and development agenda in designing our cities. This episode showcases how built environment practitioners can play a ‘developmental’ role in placemaking. Nabeel was born in Afghanistan and is of Iraqi origin. He started his school in the UK and was trained as an architect at the Architectural Association in London. Nabeel then worked for Greater London Council on social housing, applying...

Farhat Afzal studied architecture to broaden her horizon and to think outside the box. Farhat also writes about the thoughts that goes through young minds, including masculinity, our day to day, urban hurdle of moving in our streets, to quarter life crisis faced by young people regarding key decisions in their lives. Now she is using her critical thinking to question how we were taught following colonial and then a modern style, heavily influenced by the west. Farhat is now pursuing a PhD in...

Priti’s passion for working in the slums of India with her dad, encouraged her to dedicate her engineering career to improve the lives of people, by providing quality infrastructure across Asia, Africa and the UK. Priti has been awarded as one of the top 50 women in engineering as well as the top 100 academics for policy making. Priti holds many influential positions, as the Director of Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, as the founder...

Shahriar Caesar Rahman, is passionate about saving wildlife in Bangladesh. As a child, growing up in New York city, he volunteered to save the urban animals there. This inspired him to form his own charity ‘Creative Conservation Alliance’. Caesar has been working patiently for over 15 years to bring changes to the mindsets and policies on wildlife conservation.  He is a champion for community based conservation, and won many prestigious awards worldwide. As we modernise and build new cities,...

Michèle Young has over two decades of experience as an architect, in the UK and Poland, and as a humanitarian and international development practitioner. Michèle advised and supported teams worldwide to deliver best practice in emergency shelter, housing reconstruction and social infrastructure (re)construction in both conflict and environmental disasters in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific.   Now Michèle is the Development Coordination Manager, for Tower Hamlet, a local...

Have you ever thought why the world map is upside down in My MARS mantra podcast logo? Meet Richard Turner, who gave me this idea to look at things from a fresh perspective. As we are celebrating the Earth Day earlier this week, let’s find out from Richard, what Sustainable Fundraising mean? How can we bring both the profit and not-for profit sectors together to reach a common goal for saving our planet? Richard has over 30 years of fundraising experience for many UK-based charities, like...

Farah Mihlar grew up in Sri Lanka, witnessing the civil war. She then became a journalist, and now a human rights activist working at international policy level, while teaching at Oxford Brookes University. Farah is passionate on advocating minority rights and women's rights, working on conflict prevention, peace building and transitional justice. Farah holds a PhD, where she did an ethnographic field research on political Islam and Islamic religious movements in Sri Lanka. Farah also...

Kate Bowen-Evans shares her story of growing up between two cultures in Buruni and England. This helped her to develop empathy and inner resilience to thrive and work in some of the most difficult places like Afghanistan, Palatine, Israel and many other conflict and disaster prone countries. Kate has now moved on from working in disasters and conflict zones to teaching on Humanitarian Practice. Kate’s own daughter's and her brother’s experience of living with disability motivated her to...

Dr. Nafeesur Rahman has been working for nearly 3 decades on raising awareness, designing disability inclusive policies and systems to advocate for the rights of the persons with disability in Bangladesh and across Asia. He believes that to bring changes in policies and to implement them, it is important to have a long-term vision and several back-up plans. We also need to bring along the government and civil society in the same page. He shares many success stories on influencing governments,...

Nayoka Martinez-Bäckström currently lives in Bangladesh where she works as First Secretary (Environment & Climate) and Deputy Head of Cooperation at the Embassy of Sweden, Dhaka.  Before Bangladesh, she promoted sustainable city planning and development in Asia and Africa. Nayoka was born and raised in the Philippines and considers Sweden her home. Nayoka is also a mother of two twins. In this episode, Nayoka shares her optimism about Bangladesh and Sweden's climate and youth movement,...

Zoe Jordan is a researcher and Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP) in Oxford Brookes University. Zoe research looks into forced migration and humanitarianism. She focuses on how displaced populations respond to and manage their displacement in protracted and urban contexts. Zoe started her career working with NGOs in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Haiti, leading and supporting humanitarian projects responding to urban displacement,...

Laila Kondkar, is leading her own child rights based organisation ‘Shishurai Shob’ in Bangladesh. Laila engages people from all walks of life to create a child-sensitive society. Achieving gender equality and social justice remain at the centre of her work. Laila has worked and lived in Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, Liberia, Australia and England, leading on Child Protection, Child Rights Governance, Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS. She has studied in many well reputed universities including...

Sudan has over two decades long history of conflict. Recently 5.5 million people are displaced within and outside to neighbouring countries, as the conflict continues. There is not enough international funding for basic relief supplies like food, shelter and jobs for these displaced people. Sudan has not been in the global news either. People like Godfrey Lokuju, a former Civil Servant from Sudan and now a Humanitarian Coordinator for the United Nations, is voicing on behalf of the forgotten...

জাকির হোসান বাংলাদেশের একটি তৃণমূল সংস্থা "কৃষকের স্বরের" সভাপতি। ছোটবেলা থেকে বরিশালের ছোট্ট এক গ্রামে শিমুলভাঙা নামের এক নদীর পাড়ে প্রকৃতির ভেতর দিয়ে বড় হওয়া একজন মানুষ যেন নিজের পুরোটা জীবন কাটিয়ে দিলেন সেই প্রকৃতির ভেতরেই। প্রকৃতি আর কৃষির জন্য অগাধ ভালোবাসা থেকেই তিনি কৃষক ও কৃষির জন্য কাজ করা শুরু করেন। আর সেই কাজের কান্ডারি হিসেবে তিনি বেছে নেন স্কুলের ছাত্র ছাত্রীদের। দূর্যোগের সময় দ্রুত আশ্রয়কেন্দ্রে পৌঁছানোর জন্য ব্রিজ তৈরী করা থেকে শুরু করে সিডরে ক্ষতিগ্রস্ত হওয়া গাছপালা রক্ষা করার...

অধ্যাপক খন্দকার সাব্বির আহমেদ বাংলাদেশ স্থপতি ইন্সটিটিউটের সভাপতি এবং বাংলাদেশ প্রকৌশল বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের (বুয়েট) স্থাপত্য বিভাগে শিক্ষকতা করছেন। এই পর্বে, আপনি জলবায়ু এবং ঝুঁকি সংবেদনশীল বিল্ডিং ডিজাইন, নগর পরিকল্পনা এবং বৈশ্বিক উষ্ণতার প্রভাব কমাতে স্থপতিদের ব্যাপক ভূমিকা সম্পর্কে জানবেন Professor Khandaker Shabbir Ahmed is the President of the Institute of Architects Bangladesh and teaches at the Department of Architecture, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). He...

Zafar Alam is a former civil servant shares his story of growing up during the independance war of Bangladesh. Zafar alam helped many climate-displaced landless families to restart their lives, by allocating them a new piece of land in the remotest parts of the country. He was active during the COVID-19 pandemic keeping the port authrorities and the hospitals running, training future civil servants. Zafar Alam now teached at several universites in Bangladesh. এপিসোড ৯ বিজয় দিবসের বোনাস - জাফর...

আমাদের পৃথিবী প্রতিদিন উষ্ণ থেকে উষ্ণতর হয়ে উঠছে। আর আমরা শীঘ্রই মঙ্গলগ্রহে পালানোর কল্পনা করছি। ‘মঙ্গলগ্রহে পালানোর মিশন মার্স’ দ্বারা প্রতারিত হবেন না! আসুন আমাদের এই বাস্তব পৃথিবীতে ফিরে আসি! আমরা এই পৃথিবী কে কিভাবে শান্তিপূর্ণ আর বসবাসের উপযোগী করবো তাই ভেবে দেখি। আমি ফারহাত আফজাল আপনাদের আমার মঙ্গল মন্ত্র বা My MARS Mantra পডকাস্টে এ স্বাগত জানাই। ইংরেজিতে MARS শব্দটির সংক্ষিপ্তরূপ হচ্ছে, Motivation কিংবা প্রেরণা, Action কিংবা কাজ, Reflection কিংবা প্রতিফলন, এবং Sustainability কিংবা...