Visiting the Dalit Community in Khulna, Bangladesh

On 13 May 2025, the COLOCAL project at ICCCAD-IUB, including Prof. Matthew Cashmore from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), visited the Dalit NGO for their monthly meet and greet and scholarship distribution with Dalit students in Khulna. The event brought together financially struggling students, primarily from the Dalit community, many of whom the COLOCAL team were meeting for the first time.

Swapon Kumar Das, the executive director of Dalit, first welcomed the mix of college and university students present, after which, there was an introduction to the Dalit identity and the history of their work. This session highlighted some crucial facts about the Dalit. For example, their literacy rate stands at only 45%, with even fewer retaining functional literacy, despite the national average being 78%. More than 64 percent of this community lives in the southern coastal region, with greater environmental threats. They are, by most measurable indicators, far behind the mainstream, and very little is being done with public funds to reduce it.

The students present at the event gave these statistics a human face. Provati Das, pursuing her masters at Khulna University, thanked the organization for its support and strongly urged her community towards higher education. She particularly urged younger Dalit girls to chase their dreams. Baishakhi Das, who had recently passed her HSC, and Swapna Sarker, a postgraduate student at Satkhira Government Mohila College, both spoke with gratitude toward Dalit NGO. Mohammad Josim, studying nursing and working on climate change awareness, noted that even without being Dalit himself, he received support from the organization when no other NGO stepped in.

K. A. Rabbani from IUB told the students the university's door was open and that anyone wanting to study at IUB would have support. Fahmid Mohtasin explained the history of collaboration between the COLOCAL project and Dalit, hoping it continues in the future. And finally, Prof. Matthew Cashmore thanked the organization for the invitation, introduced Norway briefly, and spoke about how COLOCAL supports education development across the Global South. He expressed hope of welcoming some of them to Norway one day.

Dalit, as an organisation, was established to address the marginalisation of their community and work towards their betterment. Their activities strongly emphasise on education and training, but also extends to child protection, rights-based activities, and efforts to reduce child marriage. They also run a low-cost hospital, an Ayurvedic medicine production facility, and an IT training centre, equipping students with digital skills for freelancing opportunities.