MY EMPLOYMENT
Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO)
The facts about my interest with rural development during forestry study inspired me to work with a leading NGO in Bangladesh and I thought it was nice to get some practical experiences about rural development. I worked for a very short period (three months) for a NGO as a program organizer for various programs to alleviate rural poverty e.g. sericulture, poultry farming, small enterprise development project, agroforestry, tree nursery etc. From this very brief experience I found that people have made money in the name of rural development. People are talking about rural development, alleviation of poverty etc., but in reality, in the name of rural development they have developed themselves a lot, instead of developing the poor people. Finally I realized NGOs may not be the permanent solution for eradication of poverty in Bangladesh. However, according to me there are more good aspects of NGOs than bad in Bangladesh. The awareness creation of rural people, in the area of rural health and sanitation, education, unemployment reduction both in the rural and urban area, women empowerment etc.- all these are good contributions of the NGOs. If the accountability of the financial side of NGOs can be audited and verified by an independent body (not necessarily be a government agency) is ensured, it would improve the performance of the NGOs. Merely my opinion !
However, in general it was a good training
for me, though for a short period with NGO. I learnt a lot during working with
rural people and how their development issues can be approached in a practical
manner.
Later I was offered two jobs; one as Assistant Conservator of Forest (ACF) in the Government Forest Department of Bangladesh and another a lecturer in Khulna University at the same time. I chose to be a member of the academic staff at Forestry and Wood Technology Discipline, Khulna University, the career path I was and am interested for. I have worked in this discipline from February 1995 to March 1998. Currently I am working as a Scientist after completing a PhD in Chemical Engineering.
ACADEMIC CAREER
I started teaching undergraduate
Forestry & Wood Technology students about Forest-Based Small Scale Industries.
Later I was given the opportunity to teach other subjects, e.g. Wood Structure
and Properties; Wood Composites, Adhesives and Finishes; Wood Chemistry; Aerial
photgrammetry and Remote Sensing. I also supervised student's other activities
e.g. BSc dissertation, field trips, evaluation of students performance etc.
Though it needs a lot of hard work to be a good teacher, it is a very interesting
profession. I enjoyed this work all along.