Students helped the flood victims in Bangladesh

Max Harrold

From left to right: Nadia Bhuiyan, Adil Salim, Abdus Salam, Nazmul Hoque, Shamsuzzoha, Saud Ahmed, Mashrur Mia. Bottom, left to right: Rafiqul Islam Hasib Ullah, Hasan Salek, Numan Al Takrouri.

It took just 10 minutes, but in that short time on Sept. 23, Professor Nadia Bhuiyan and dozens of student volunteers moved mountains for flood victims in Bangladesh.

“We had to make the deadline and move 300 boxes of blankets and food from the seventh floor [of the Hall Building],” she explained, “so we asked around, and suddenly there were all these students forming a chain. It was great!”

Bhuiyan is a professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and
associate director of the Concordia Institute for Aerospace and Design
Innovation. She first thought of organizing a relief effort this past July after she saw news reports of flood damage in Bangladesh. More than 1,000 people died and 20 million were left homeless or were affected by the floods. Bhuiyan is a native of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.
During the first week of school, Bhuiyan sent e-mails to students, friends and colleagues asking for help.

“I was very depressed during the first week because there wasn’t much of a response,” she said. That soon changed as students got settled in, and within days a core group was assembled. Although help came from diverse sources, members of the Muslim Students Association used part of their budget to rent a truck to collect donations of blankets, canned goods, Tylenol, toys and towels, among other things, from all over Montreal.

“I just imagine their smiles when they get the stuff,” said Numan Altakrouri, an undergraduate in mechanical. He helped with the truck pick-ups, which covered 20 stops and lasted nearly eight hours.
Hasan Salek, who also helped with the pick-ups, said, “I’m here [at Concordia] to study, but I feel it’s one of my duties to help my country.”

Salek, a graduate student in mechanical engineering, recounted with pride how on the final night, when the boxes were to be handed over for shipment, he went into the mosque in the Hall Building and asked for volunteers: “There were people praying, and they got up and helped us.”

With Haitian floods also making headlines, relief efforts need to be ongoing for people in need Bhuiyan said. “We [in Canada] have so much. This is the least I can do.”

The Canadian Relief Foundation is shipping the donations into to the Bangladeshi port city of Chittagong. Items will then be distributed in Noakhali, one of the hardest-hitdistricts.

More information about the Bangladesh relief effort and other aid projects can be obtained online at www.canadianrelief.ca.