Made in Bangladesh 6
Cyberbullying 16
Tagore meets Einstein 20
FRIDAY MARCH 14 2014 vol 1 Issu e 46
Made in Bangladesh.
Meet Sadaf. Sadaf Siddiqi is the chairperson of SAFE, a local non-profit trust that provides emergency relief, and one of the organisations working on the ground after Rana Plaza collapsed. SAFE also provides health and safety awareness and training for the garments industry. She is also runs a garments factory. ‘We are responsible for the well-being of the people who work for us. We feel the weight of that responsibility, and take it very seriously.’ Since 1992, Sadaf has been involved with Naripokkho, a women’s activist group. They formed Doorbar – a network of 550 women-led organisations throughout all 64 districts of Bangladesh – to fight violence against women and ensure the establishment of women’s rights. Sadaf is also passionate about the arts. Through Jatrik and Shadhona, she promotes Bangladeshi culture and heritage, and arranges events such as the World Music
Festival and the annual Hay Festival in Dhaka. She is a poet and a writer. She has collected narratives from Bangladeshi workers and activists, which have been performed for the stage. Sadaf grew up in the UK, and came to Bangladesh when she was 16 years old. She did her HSC at a Bangla medium college. At that point, Bangla was a language she could read but didn’t yet speak fluently. ‘It was huge culture shock. I learned very fast.’ Her father decided to come back and do something for the country, so he left Cambridge to start a research centre at Chittagong University. His passionate drive was contagious. ‘Something shifted in me in those two years of college. I knew I had to come back.’ After university in the UK, she did just that. Sadaf was photographed in a Jamdani sari, made by artisans following a centuries-old Bangladeshi style of handloom textile-weaving.