Over 50 years until his death in 2019 Fazle Abed's (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Cooperations) hired over 100000 trainers who empowered Bangladesh women to build their new nation. Between 1972 and 1995 villagers were without electricity, when a Japanese partner brought Abed bracnet in 1995 together with solar, abed started looking for partners in leapfrog models. Steve Jobs family hosted a dinner party for Abed in 2001. Without this brac university and brac global might never have happened.
Related refs: Brac Education 4.1; primary 4.2; teen 4.3; university4.4 ; pre-school4.5;tech multidisciplinary luminaries 4.6 Brac Global 1.6
When it comes to humanity's greatest entrepreneurs, Fazle Abed is near the top and certainly the least acknowledged. Ironically he was the most cooperative of people that ED my journalist friends and I have ever met. Here are 2 intros- hopefully you'll see why I recommend most everyone, youth most of all, can action learn with the life of Abed Bhai. If you have a question about Abed, I'm chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk
that I would rather do something else (from my homeland east pakistan later Bangladesh)
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1955? I went to Glasgow University (where Smiths economics and Watt's engines had appeared nearly 200 years earlier, and studied
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naval architecture for two years and
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then I decided that I would not pursue that,
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because after qualifying I wouldn't
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have any job back in my home so
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I decided to change to accounting that was
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also at that time that I became very
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interested in European literature;;
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English literature even architecture so
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I became quite a European aeshetic
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next while I was abroad I lost
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my mother in 1957 so that was also one
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of the reasons why I didn't come home very often my mother's loss was a great
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loss to me - she was a person of great
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kindness and I still think of her
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and how young she was when she died -
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she was 44
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but then in 1965 I came back to east pakistan and then I liked
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what I saw, and in the 1968 I came back for
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for good (appointed Shell's regional CEO) . 1970 a cyclone was racing towards us: I was thinking that this is
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a night which is going to be the last
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night for many people; deaths at that night
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were about 500,000 there is no point in
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living in a kind of life that you are
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completely insulated from other people's
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the importance of doing work in a multinational
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organization seemed quite immaterial to
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me at that point -this sort of
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changed my whole attitude to life
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- there was an uprising of people
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and East Pakistan's army started of cracking down on
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people of Bangladesh they came to our
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house .. they lined us up but as the
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chairman of Shell Oil Company they wanted me
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to work as liaison officer between the oil
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companies and the Army headquarters
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which were murdering our people
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so I would like to tender my resignation
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and protest against it and I'd be able
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to contribute more for the liberation
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war from London than joining the resistance
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also I thought that the struggle
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will go on for a long period of time I
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have to basically finance myself for the
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next few years so I couldn't really
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afford to keep my house in Bangladesh
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became liberated very quickly all the
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money was there for me to start BRAC
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I saw the distress of people having to
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leave their homes and go to India to
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live in a camp and that gave me an
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impression that after Bangladesh became
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independent all these people ten million
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people will come back home and they will
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find
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there's nothing there to start - so i began by rebuilding 15000 village homes
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recruited a lot of young people who were
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in the liberation movement so I was like
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their teacher so we're learning together
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we decided to go to every household in
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Bangladesh to teach women how to make
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oral rehydration fluid at home to cut
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down diarrhea as causing infant mortality-
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once we have gone to every every house
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Bangladesh felt like our backyard c
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most people think that was a kind of
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rebirth for me because I was a very different
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kind of person I was very well dressed
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as a young man in London they used to
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call me the Lord Camden so most people
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didn't think with that kind of life I would later
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go into villages working with
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poorest people; they didn't think that I
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was that kind of person at all;
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although I don't see a great
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deal of change in the sense that I still
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like to dress up in good clothes
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- you know I still
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like to listen to good music and so on
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in my mind the most important thing is
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what I do... AND
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my wife was involved in work so it
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was a very wonderful opportunity for brac
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to grow in leadership which is
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provided by two people not only me but
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also my wife she was very impressive
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figure we were both going to Harvard as
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visiting scholars she was like
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a mother figure in Brac - she
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worked with rural
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artisans but then in brac's year 9 she died we decided to
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develop and foundation in her name http://blog.brac.net/she-was-the-heart-and-soul-of-brac/
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Ayesha Abed Foundation which provides
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employment opportunities for poor
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artisans in rural Bangladesh. I was
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devastated by the loss of my wife but
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then gradually over time I got into
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Brac again; giving attention to women
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and girls has been important as to how
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to bring about change in women's lives
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so that they can produce children
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without having to die for it.
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when I think about Bangladesh I think
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about everybody -not everybody's enjoying life
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not everybody has a chance to
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enjoy the literature and great
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culture but I
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think everybody has got the right to
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have this experience so if you say that
6:14 Brac has helped people in poverty
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alleviation -then brac hasn't done much other
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than healthcare or finan-its
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the poor people who have worked very
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hard to get themselves out of poverty
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it was in 2001 when the head of Apple
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Steve Jobs I went to have dinner with
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him and Steve asked me why did it take
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Brac 30 years to come out of Bangladesh.
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I said Steve I never thought of going
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anywhere else I just wanted to work in
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brac -- it's was only when I found that
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in Afghanistan suddenly three million
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Afghans were going back to their
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homeland I saw that many of the things
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that we do in Bangladesh
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microfinance healthcare education and
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so we got
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self-confidence that many of the things
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that we do in Bangladesh are probably
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good for other countries too
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I consider myself a global citizen I'm
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ready to help in any country which needs BRAC
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BB
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I don't have any retirement plan but I
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I'm semi-retired in the sense that I
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come to office about 10 o'clock I used
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to have a date in the old times and I
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used to go home at 7 I still I go home
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on 7 but then I take rest in the in the
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afternoon
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I don't seek the publisher for my work
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recognition is something that pleases me
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because it pleases by organization our
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staff feels happy
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the brakes work is recognized I'm
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interested in the work itself and the
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kind of benefit poor people derive from
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it
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I've lived a full life and I'm happy
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that my life has not been wasted
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[Music]
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my legacy is of course brag but prank
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means to go on being relevant to the
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lives of the people
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human life is for a short period in on
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earth
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and I would like that short period that
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each of us have to be as happy and as
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productive and as meaningful as possible.
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CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN WISE MEN & WOMEN
The transcript on the left refers to California's first known brainstorming dinner on NEW UNI- it was hosted by Mrs Steve Jobs and 2 soon-to-be dearly departed men : Steve Jobs & Fazle Abed
My father Norman (Poverty Economist Norman Macrae) died 9 years latter. I was quite surprised to be contacted by Japan Ambassador in Dhaka - would it be of if he hosted 2 remembrance parties chaired by Fazle Abed to discuss womens new universities. When I said of course- i didnt realise that would involve 16 more visits with young journalists including attendance at Abed's 60th birthday. There was a Chinese female student ambassador there who had already become an active facilitator in qatar of the worlds first global education laureates designed round abed as laureate 1. At the time Firts Lady Sheikha Moza's education city campus wasnt famous - in fact the world cup stadium hadnt been built but the nations world trade conference centre and the majority womens campus were all co-located. Said the Chinese student are we allowed to start up AdedMooc before I go to oxford as a Rhodes scholar, Said fazle on one condition - C= Coopertaion ( women empowered communities cooperations celebrating borderless social actions and millennial womens AIgood) not Certification's pieces of paper.
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Left is a youtube he made near to end of his life. Right is an intro to my paper on what the world would uniquely miss if Abed had never existed, If you have question about Abed
