Fall 2010 - Asian University for Women

20
OCTOBER 2010 VOL. 4, NO. 2
Mrs. Hakim Ali often can be found holding court
with Chamber members in her office at the Hotel
Agrabad, a cosmopolitan hotel in downtown
Chittagong where she currently serves as director.
She offers the women of Chittagong loans to
get their businesses started and practical advice
that she has acrued from years of experience
operating as a pioneering businesswoman in the
region’s traditionally male-dominated business
environment.
“Local people are very proud to know that this University
is going to be here.”
MRS. MONOWARA HAKIM ALI
The Chamber demonstrates that while an
institution like AUW may have been new to
Chittagong, it certainly was not unprecedented.
Mrs. Hakim Ali sees the same model of progress
proposed in the Chamber alive and well at AUW.
She calls the University “a big step for the
women of Chittagong,” not merely because
AUW educates promising young women from
the city, but because it offers women of all ages
and backgrounds a portal to the outside world
and an example of female empowerment. She
notes that garnering support for the University
has not been difficult: “Local people are very
proud to know that this University is going to be
here.” She also expresses her faith in AUW as an
institution. “I know some of the local girls: what
they were and what they are [now] doing. What a
change!” she says.
Mrs. Hakim Ali embodies the strong connection
between AUW and the greater community. She
regularly attends events at the University and, on
occasion, she has reserved the pool at the Hotel
Agrabad for the exclusive use of AUW students.
She grows emotional, her dark eyes filling with
tears, as she describes the outpouring
of gratitude from the students, who
sent handwritten notes and painted
signs as thanks. “That’s my achievement
in life,” she asserts.
In exchange for this hospitality, AUW
has encouraged its students to contribute
to their surroundings. The benefits go
both ways. Not only does the community gain by
embracing the students’ participation, but the
students’ experiences play a crucial role in their
development into thoughtful and ethical leaders.
AUW students have responded enthusiastically
by beginning projects of their own or by working
with local non-governmental organizations.
Four Access Academy students, for example, volunteer
with a local NGO that runs a small village
school. Every Saturday morning they navigate
Chittagong’s congested streets to reach the village,
located an hour and a half away by public
transportation. The school is housed in one
room. Nearly 60 students, some as young as 3
years old, pile into the room to listen to the
young women standing before them. Faced with
an overflow of students, the Access Academy
students are often forced to relocate the class to
the village’s temple, where, in an incongruous
departure from the hushed quietude of the
space, they break into song and dance to keep
the youngest class members captivated.
One Access Academy student notes, “We don’t
have enough resources but we are trying our
best to teach them as much as we can … In [the
Access Academy] we learn a lot of things, so we
want to share that knowledge with them … their
focus is narrow.” To that end, the Access
Academy students teach their class about the
world; they expand their students’ horizons as
their own horizons have been expanded, showing
the children world maps and answering the
questions that tumble forth in waves of curiosity,
such as when computers were invented and what
a printer does exactly. The Access Academy students
often return home to AUW with a list of
additional questions to research before the start
of the next teaching session.
AUW’s Community Service Club also supplies a
local school with teachers. Without fail, the club
members wake early on Saturday mornings to
travel to a nearby impoverished community.
Stepping carefully through the trash-strewn
paths to get to a one-room school with packed
dirt floors and a corrugated tin roof, the AUW