Queens Village entrepreneur’s nonprofi t creates
educational materials for Bangladeshi youth
BY CARLOTTA MOHAMED
Jahin Rahman of Queens
Village is on a mission to help
educate the youth in the slums
of Bangladesh who will be
unable to attend school after
COVID-19 due to financial constraints.
Rahman is a 16-year-old
entrepreneur and student at
the Academy of American
Studies in Long Island City.
She is a National Prudential
Award winner, a 2020 Bank of
America Student Leader, and
a recipient of other awards for
her social work.
She is the founder of Efforts
in Youth Development
of Bangladesh (EYDB), a nonprofit
student-led organization
in New York City and Dhaka,
the capital of Bangladesh. The
team provides quality education
to at-risk youth in Bangladesh
by developing paths
toward social sustainability
for the next generation.
In partnership with organizations,
EYDB has built a
library and computer lab, established
a literacy program,
and donated clothing to benefit
children from underserved
communities in Bangladesh.
Through EYDB, Rahman
and 300-plus youth from
across the U.S. and eight countries
are currently working
on their next project: creating
yearlong educational materials
for impoverished children
in Bangladesh.
“In Bangladesh, because of
the pandemic, schools are obviously
closed like it is in the
U.S. and we have access to remote
learning,” Rahman said.
“But in Bangladesh, especially
for youths living in the slums,
they don’t have access to the
internet or any device for remote
learning, and we were
thinking about how we can
create materials to support
their learning.”
In collaboration with Interns
4-Good, an organization
that connects high school students
with virtual, skill-based
internship opportunities at
nonprofit organizations, EYDB
is working with 102 interns to
create content for Bangladeshi
youth.
“The interns have been
trained over Zoom and assigned
to specific grades and
subjects. We are focusing on
three subject areas: English,
Bengali and Art,” Rahman
said.
Jahin Rahman, (second from left) is the founder of Efforts in Youth Development of Bangladesh (EYDB), a nonprofit organization that
provides quality education to children in underserved communities in Bangladesh. Photos courtesy of Jahin Rahman
According to Rahman, the
team is preparing worksheets
with lessons for kids in kindergarten
through eighth
grade. Rahman travels to Bangladesh
once every year, and
is hoping to visit Dhaka in
TIMESLEDGER | 20 QNS.COM | JUNE 19-25, 2020
August to deliver 4,000 copies
of the workbooks to kids living
in the slums, she said.
The organization is also
looking forward to collaborating
with Queens politicians to
provide services across New
York City, but that initiative
is currently on hold due to the
pandemic, Rahman said.
Additionally, EYDB’s other
projects — the construction of
a drug rehabilitation center
for street children affected by
drugs, bathrooms for girls in
rural schools, and a daycare
center — have been postponed
as well.
This summer, Rahman is
also partnering with Base For
Girls to distribute 500 menstrual
product kits to girls in
Bangladesh, and conduct menstrual
hygiene and reproductive
health classes.
For Rahman, helping to
change at least some of the
kids’ lives in Bangladesh is a
huge accomplishment for her,
she said.
“I’m a very action-driven
person and anything I can do
for the community motivates
me to go on in my life,” Rahman
said. If at this moment
I can help thousands of children,
I don’t know what can be
a bigger blessing than that and
if I change the lives of youth,
that gives me happiness.”
Reach reporter Carlotta
Mohamed by e-mail at cmohamed@
schnepsmedia.com or
by phone at (718) 260–4526.
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