By Marjiya Baktyer Ahmed
Junior Chamber International (JCI) made its landmark debut in Bangladesh in the year 1972, in recognition of the country’s liberation the year before. However, it was in 1998 that JCI Bangladesh started their operations to bring about systemic change within the society by empowering the youth with leadership skills. The organization is a platform for building leadership skills. It instills values in its members and strives by their vision of empowering the youth by equipping them with leadership skills to make a significant contribution to society.
JCI Bangladesh began its operations with two initial chapters – JCI Dhaka East and JCI Dhaka West. As of now, JCI has 14 chapters in the country, 12 of which are in Dhaka with 1 in Chittagong and another one in Sylhet. Mehedi Hossain presides over JCI Dhaka West. The young president started his career in 2014 as a Training Commissioner, rising steadily through the ranks until he secured the presidency.
JCI has won numerous competitions on debate and public speaking. In the first step of his induction, Mehedi found his niche in the debating arena, becoming the National Debate Champion in 2014. He went on to become the National Public Speaking Champion and National Debate Champion in 2016 and 2017 respectively. Mehedi describes JCI as a platform for leadership development saying, “Leadership development can be encouraged through sustainable projects in communities or through events – there are multiple ways to foster leadership.”
At JCI, leadership skills are taught through training workshops, competitions, and projects. Under Mehedi’s guidance, JCI Dhaka West launched an international training platform called ‘Convince’ in 2014. Since then the platform has hosted three training sessions with a focus on communication skills, management, and transformational leadership skills, moderated by international trainers.
Looking to engage local corporate leaders as trainers, JCI Dhaka West spearheaded the platform ‘Expedite’. Industry giants like Unilever and BUP dispensed training focused on the transition from academic life to the corporate/work life. Using Neuro-Linguistic Programming, local trainers taught the importance of living with a purpose and the need to prioritize.
Between the years 2014-2015, the platform ‘Voice’ was initiated. Rebranded and renamed ‘Steps’, the platform promotes English debate beyond the periphery of Dhaka. ‘Steps’ is focused on encouraging logical thinking and foster English-speaking fluency through debate. Mehedi stresses the importance of debate saying, “The more you debate them more your thoughts become logical, cohesive and coherent.”
With the intention to stimulate open discussions within the corporate sphere, Mehedi came up with a debating platform – Corporate Open. The platform allowed, Bangladesh Debating Council to participate and emerge as the victor last year. Corporate Open made its debut as a corporate debating platform which encouraged the inclusion of men, women and transgender people. Mehedi reiterates, “When you debate and discuss, you become more accepting of perspectives that don’t necessarily resonate with yours.”
While JCI Dhaka West offers training, they also create impactful projects with a more long-term goal in mind. Two of their flagship projects include ‘Embrace the Difference’ and ‘JCI Suburb Community’. Embrace the Difference is a brilliant initiative which caters to the differently-abled children of society. Trying to do away with the stigma surrounding differently-abled children, Embrace the Difference hosted an art competition where participants comprised both normally-abled and differently-abled children. The venture began humbly in 2016 with a small number of participants. Now it has bloomed into a large scale project which hosted an impressive 700 normally-abled and 100 differently-abled children from the Autism Foundation in 2018. Mehedi explains, “We plan on continuing with this as long as it continues to yield positive results. The promising aspect of this project is that it encouraged normally-abled and differently-abled children to develop a friendship with each other.”
JCI Suburb Community, on the other hand, has its sights set on building a community through sustainable means. Currently running five projects within a small suburban community called Kolakia located on the outskirts of the city. JCI has zeroed in on four key issues which need resolving. Firstly, a health camp which provides information and care on critical illnesses like cervical cancer has been set up. In Ramadan, JCI Dhaka West partnered with Arla and campaigned for healthy living by providing 2400 liters of milk in the community for free. They even began a campaign to raise awareness around menstrual hygiene management by engaging the children of the community to put on a play and educate their peers and other members within Kolakia.
And lastly, another notable issue within the community was the harassment of school-going girls faced. In order to mitigate this issue, ‘Na Bola Kotha’ was established, which became a safe space for the girls to voice their grievances and ultimately have them resolved.
One progressive solution JCI Dhaka West was to come up with is creating an interactive virtual reality game. The game is an immersive experience where the players get the chance to become a member of the community and explore it to unearth issues which need to be addressed. Mehedi expounds, “When you play the game you have to buy certain things and spending this money becomes part of the solution making process. Different players come with different solutions for the same issue. Thus it only stands to reason, that when multiple people play it then we have multiple solutions and we can pick the most ideal one.” This game generates revenue while coming up with solutions to tackle pressing matters.
Mehedi envisions using JCI’s influence to tackle more serious problems within our society and coming up with further sustainable plans and projects. With his tenure, as local president, at its end, Mehedi talks about his future plans. “The plan is to climb up the national ladder, then move on to international JCI platform. I have 12 years left to be in JCI so if I have the ability I can become the global president for JCI.”
