Media Type

Lecture

Publication Date

3-15-2022

Description

Respected Sartaj Aziz sahib, Respected Shoaib Sultan sahib, Parvez Tahir sahib, Dr.Ayesha Khan, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, I am extremely honored but also humbled to be asked to deliver Akhtar Hameed Khan Memorial lecture this evening. I am grateful to my mentor and lifelong teacher Shoaib Sultan sahib for his kind gesture in bestowing this honour. I would like to pay my personal tribute to Shoaib sahib for keeping the memory of Akhtar Hameed Khan sahib alive by organizing this lecture every year. Shoaib sahib’ single minded devotion to the cause espoused by AHK deserves our gratitude. He has faced so many hurdles and difficulties in this journey of over five decades but he has never given up and persisted with his mission with zeal and dedication. I must confess that there are more distinguished persons, better qualified than me to speak about that great giant. But having been provided this opportunity let me share a few thoughts today as to how we can continue to celebrate and perpetuate his legacy. My first interaction with this great man was when the CSP probationers of 1964 batch were deputed to attend the course at the Rural Development Academy in Comilla. His simple manners, unassuming and down to earth personality, his vision and practices impressed all of us. However some of us including myself were bitten by his passion for poverty alleviation, participatory development , organizing the Communities, empowering them to design and undertake interventions that would benefit them and treating women as partners in development.. AHK was a firm believer that the NGO workers or Academy faculty members should only provide technical assistance but not prescribe or direct them to carry out the tasks themselves. The idea was to mobilize and energize the Communities to realize their potential as they understood their problems best and also solutions. What outsiders can do is to extend a helping hand in building their capacity. His approach of participatory development, listening to the people’s problems, helping to build their capacity, organize them into groups and mobilize resources locally has stuck with me throughout my professional life .

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