Photo : Collected
For the past few days, relief collection activities were continued in Dhaka University to help the flood victims. For the past few days, there has been a rush of people from morning to evening in TSC, but today in the afternoon, there was a difference in the picture. Compared to other days, the number of people in fundraising TSC is less.
A wide number of volunteers were seen in TSC during the past few days. But the picture is different today. It is said by some students that the external volunteers were removed from the TSC today, following an argument between the external volunteers with Dhaka University students yesterday.
"We come to TSC often and the number of volunteers today is much less than other days. We don't know the reason but we fear that this will delay the transportation of relief to the flood affected.", stated Shaikh Abu Hasib, a retired employee of a foreign organization.
"It is really painful that the lack of sufficient manpower and trucks, relief is not being able to reach the flood victims." added his wife.
But the decrease in the number of volunteers didn't affect the collection severely. Today during 8 am to 2 pm around 27 lakh 26 thousand 128 BDT was collected from the TSC booth alone. They weren’t able to provide with aggregate amount of the whole day's collection.
"The donation hasn’t decreased. The crowd seems a bit low from the other day, but we have two other donation spots." stated Israt Jahan Sumona, a volunteer working in the fund collection booth in tsc.
However, Tasnim Tahmid, a co-coordinator who briefed the press today regarding the fundraising, couldn’t provide a complete amount of the funds.
Several students from DU have reported about misbehavior of external volunteers. Sulayman Hossain, a 22-23 session student from the law department of DU reported being attacked by a mob on TSC on yesterday evening. He was luckily saved by the people he knew.
He confirmed the involvement of external volunteers. In the prior days, several posts about volunteers misbehaving with students were also published in the 'Dhaka University Shikkharti Poribar’, a facebook based group of DU students.
`The people who were volunteering here may have done a bit excess, but given that they were doing a charity work, they probably thought they wouldn't let anyone in from a sense of duty. I am a coordinator of the movement myself but I was also stopped several times.
That doesn't mean I'll creat a scene because they won't let me in in my own university." stated, Tahmid Al Muddassir Chowdhury, a coordinator of the 'Students Against Discrimination' movement.
"I think we should get out of this identity of Dhaka University or outsider and appreciate people for their work. When people from all walks of life are coming to work, we need to see their hard work and intention rather than their mistakes." he added.
When asked about the impact of less volunteers Naomee Noshin, a volunteer working in the relief collection program and DU student stated, "A big part of outsider volunteers leaving the collection, has a big impact on the collection, the work load on the remaining has significantly increased.
Those from our campus won't do anything but post on facebook. We are forced to convince rickshaw pullers to come work with us."
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