On July 8th, my cousin called me with a quivering voice, “Do you see what’s happening in JU, BU, and BUET University right now?”

“Huh?” I asked, still baffled from being awakened at 3 AM.

“They have locked all the dorm doors so students cannot leave. Now, BCL student politicians have arrived on behalf of the government with guns and machetes. They have been killing student protesters throughout the night.”

The following month was nothing less than an apocalyptic nightmare turned reality. The protests, which started off as students coming together to speak against the government's unfair quota system in July, eventually turned into a coup on August 5th of 2024.

“They are dropping bombs in front of our house. The entire road is blocked and they are shooting students. There are dead bodies in front of my door,” my friend told me on a phone on July 27th. By this point, we had almost gotten used to the bloodbath.

In the middle of July, there was a nationwide internet blackout. We spent most of the day calling our friends on the landline to check in on them. Three of my friends went to Shahbagh near Dhaak University to protest. All of them were shot with rubber bullets and sprayed with tear gas by the police. Yet, there was no stopping. Hundreds of thousands of students nationwide protested daily against the authoritative Awami League government and then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. On August 4th, more than 100 people were killed across the country. “Don’t leave our street. They just slaughtered a man on the next street next to us,” my dad notified me that day.

Finally, on August 5th, the non-cooperation movement started. A “long march” brought together 5 million people from across the country who marched towards Shahbagh Square. On August 5th, Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country. On August 5, 2024, at 4 PM, Army Chief Waker-Uz-Zaman addressed the nation and notified us of Sheikh Hasina’s resignation. The autocratic power that had been in power for the last 15 years was dismantled.

“SHE’S GONE. She is finally gone,” I heard chanting all over our street. My dad and I marched to the former Prime Minister’s Ganabhaban residence. However, things got a little out of hand. “The post-revolution period is always tremulous,” the words of my PoliSci professor from Penn rang in my ears as we marched. People were looting everything from the Ganabhaban, ranging from furniture to food to Hasina’s innerwear. On our way back, my dad and I were on a rickshaw. Suddenly, we heard gunshots. I saw someone, a boy of roughly my age, get shot in front of me and pass away, drenched in blood. “Turn the rickshaw around,” my dad yelled at the rickshaw puller. I fell off the rickshaw, gunshots firing right next to my ears, a pool of blood close to my feet. I don’t remember much of how my dad and I made it back home that day, but I remember praying that we don’t get shot the entire way home.

The next couple of weeks were, again, an apocalyptic nightmare. Fascism in Bangladesh may have been curtailed nominally, but stability was nowhere in plain sight. There were, and still are, talks of the Islamist extremist group Jamaat e Islaam takeover.

Whenever I left my home, I saw guarding marshalls with military tanks at every corner. Looting was happening everywhere, from Dhanmondi to Mirpur—nights followed by nightmares and anxiety. “Lock yours windows at night,” announcements were made on every neighborhood loudspeaker. One of those days, some mobs tried to burn down my dad’s workplace. “They are now killing Hindus all over the country,” news headlines reported. Hindus are ethnic minorities in Bangladesh, and mobs did everything from looting their house to raping them in this period. At this point, I lost all my will. My nonprofit, EYDB, runs a small school in Khulna in the Southwestern region of Bangladesh. The majority of our students were of ethnic minority.

“They will never show up to school anymore. Their houses are being burned down. Their homes are being attacked in the night. We are on watch every night,” Uzzal Saha, our school leader from Khulna, notified me on a call on August 16th. As I sat on our house roof with my cousin that evening, the hot, humid Bangladeshi August wind blowing on my face, I wondered what I could do. My students, whom I held dear to my heart, were being harassed and abused. Our school was shut down. My student would probably not be back in school. And there was nothing I could do about it.

Fast forward three months, and I am now in London. The situation in Bangladesh has somewhat settled. An interim government led by Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yunus is now in place. There are still talks of an Islamist extremist takeover. Hate crimes are still rampant. Things are nowhere near the victorious democracy the student protesters wanted from the movement. Yet, they are a lot better than a few months ago. My updates on the situation in Bangladesh are now limited to 2 PM- news-watching with my uncle over lunch on Hawgood Street at their house where I reside.

I am in London partially for EYBD’s work. My students have suffered a tremendous amount in the last few months. Though our school, Gollachoot, has reopened, things were nowhere near perfect. Throughout my trip here, I have worked consistently to raise awareness for the situation in Bangladesh and for EYDB’s efforts to launch new social projects to support youth in Bangladesh, especially marginalized youth who have been harmed by the horrors of July and August. I have been in talks with grassroots organizations and nonprofits throughout my time here to raise awareness and funds for EYDB’s new project. Our two new projects center around extending our school branches to other rural villages in the Southwestern region of Bangladesh and implementing a community health navigator program to counter noncomunicable diseases in the districts. Just last week, I was at a healthcare advocacy event at Holborn. I spoke to healthcare leaders about the current situation in Bangladesh and asked for recommendations regarding fundraising for community health efforts. I have had a few weeks of experience working on the healthcare team at a nonprofit called Lexington to learn about practical, client-based healthcare policies for social mobility. I have built a coalition and support network, both online and in-person, in Bangladesh, London, and the United States to support EYDB’s efforts. If we can raise funds and extend our school branches, we can provide quality education to a number of ethnically and socioeconomically marginalized Bangladeshi youth from the Southwestern regions. The community health navigator will bring together efforts to address non-communicable diseases that affect the marginalized populations of Bangladeshi districts due to saline water issues. Throughout my trip to London, I created connections. I gathered support for a potential program that can act as a catalyst in improving the health outcomes of marginalized populations working towards service. If successful, our project would also highlight community leadership in Bangladesh by uniting key speakers, stakeholders, and community leaders to address health issues at the forefront.