| In the early morning hours of 12th of November, the first batch of silver participants and the second batch of the Bronze participants of the Duke of Edinburgh Award (DEA), comprising of a large group of 15 students set out on their adventurous journey. Accompanying the students on their journey were two AIUB Law faculties from BBA; Ms.Sabrina Zarin and Al-Amin Rahman.
The ultimate challenge facing the students was to spend 3 days and 2 nights in a very remote area of Srimingol, Sylhet, on their own, and basically manage without any form of help, doing a range of difficult tasks and work as a team.
Even before they embarked upon the journey the students had to cover a diverse range of activities which included planning the budget for the travel, arranging the tickets, transportation and accommodation, making a sensible route plan and even had to outline the menu of the entire trip.
After a long tiresome journey, they finally reached the tea estate of Ispahani Mirzapur. The accommodation was provided with the compliments of Ispahani Mirzapur and was organized and coordinated by the AIUB Award Leader of DEA, Mr. Abdul Kader Nazmul. In fact this trip would not have been possible without his whole hearted support and cooperation.
Without any delay, right after they unpacked, all the participants set out in the dark to find the village market and purchase the necessary items. For many of the participants handling the raw groceries and food items was a brand new experience. And some of them commented that walking all the way back with their purchases on their head and carrying the rest in their hands made them feel as if they were back in the 1970s! The next challenging job on the agenda was – cooking. Preparing dinner from scratch was no easy task. After considerable time and effort the dinner was finally ready at around midnight. It was the most sumptuous dinner ever - because it was food that was accompanied by the added joy of an accomplishment!
Then a series of varied range of hectic activities started. All the participants carried out these chores with utmost patience, broad smiles and without a single complaint. The activities varied from preparing a questionnaire to walking across the hills and along the mud path under the scorching sun to conducting the rural survey on the tea garden workers and the residential facilities of the villagers. It was indeed an eye opening experience that exposed some very shocking facts and even harder realities of life! Afterwards they embarked on a sight-seeing journey around Sylhet City, where they visited the famous Shahjalal Mazar and the hilly Parjatan Eco-Park. Soon after they got the campfire ready on which the barbeque was done solely by the students. Then around the soft light of the camp-fire, dances, stories, memories and experiences were shared. A lot of games were played along side the activities of mapping and trekking. Not only that, a bronze participant even blew fire out of his mouth - a daring magic act that impressed everyone around. In the adventurous journey a lot of activities were completed but so much more was accomplished…
All in all, the students completed every task with great confidence, praise worthy team efforts and an outstanding zeal to achieve success. It was indeed a very exciting and adventurous journey in its truest sense. For those few days they became the leaders of the wilderness sharing a strong bond of friendship and courage.
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Partnerships
