The shipbuilder turned hero

Tree bark is my paper. I sit on a mountain in the Adirondack State Park in New York, about 90 minutes south of Montreal. Between me and the anthill mass of humanity are red squirrels, black bears, bobcats, and coyotes. And miles and miles of trees and granite hills that groan with slight tremors like, like… like a 49-year-old man trying to get comfortable while writing from a perch on a mountainside.

The concerns of humanity, abiding, as they do, far from this mountain, cannot occupy me today. My own damp discomfort cannot trouble me today. Today I am here for my 14-year-old son, who is encamped alone, nearby on the mountain.

My own charges, my children, have displayed gifts and betrayed shortcomings, as have all our generations before. My son's namesake, my paternal grandfather, was an illiterate landowner who fell in love with an educated woman. The distinctions between their upbringing and class background made mutual life in rural Italy impossible. They immigrated to America. My grandfather's trials made him appreciate the value of schooling, and he raised his two children to cherish learning. I continue the tradition, and in each generation, we struggle to ensure that our children are properly educated. Under the best of circumstances, it has often been a struggle.

My responsibility for four children under these conditions seems daunting enough. I can't even imagine how much more difficult an undertaking for an educator who decides to extend this value system to 10 million children, and adults, and dedicate his life, not just to his own children, but to educating and improving the lives of approximately 110 million people worldwide, in 14 nations throughout the world.

You people.

I mean, really.

In its nascent days, God often blesses a great nation with such a pantheon of heroes that the ideas that benefit that nation often spill over and bestow blessings on the world at large.

An empty canvas, to innovative people, is the inspiration for great work. Today, in the US, a nation which will celebrate a quarter millennium of independence in 14 years, the canvas is crowded, and we can only paint around the edges.

Contrast this to the great empty canvas that Bangladesh was presented upon independence in 1971. Beset with disasters both environmental and manmade, the remarkable individuals forged in this crucible have emerged as some of the most inspirational, yet unknown, individuals on earth. Their work has not only benefited Bangladesh, but the world at large.

In my last post, I focused on Rizwana Hasan, ("Rizwana Hasan vs. ship breaking") a promising young environmentalist who dared face the goliath industry of ship breaking. This week, I focus on a hero who began his college career as a shipbuilder, and became a representative of Shell Oil until the cyclone of 1970 took the lives of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen. Out of the devastation of that flood, this visionary realised that his own personal gain could not justify his time here on the planet. He had to do something for his fellow Bangladeshis.

When I think of all the people who have done good on this earth, of the philanthropy of certain famous Hollywood stars, of our President's undeserved Nobel Prize, I wonder at the nature of fame itself. The name Fazle Hasan Abed should be spoken in the same breath as world-changing heroes; Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, cultural dynamos like John Lennon, and activists like our own Martin Luther King, Jr. Yet his name was unfamiliar to me just a week ago, until one of you mentioned him. As usual, I drew inspiration from your comments and did some research. The more I read, the more amazed I grew. Abed's NGO, BRAC, employs 120,000 people worldwide and generates an annual revenue of about five hundred million dollars a year, all for the cause of promoting education and increasing the access of the poorest humans on earth to social justice and opportunity. What has BRAC accomplished as it celebrates 40 years of operation?

It has fundamentally changed life for the better for millions of people on the planet. Out of a cyclone's devastation and loss of 300,000 souls in 1971 came a call to action for one man. The organization has employed an army of teachers, health professionals, advocates and administrators. It has also tackled the problem of childhood diarrhoea, reducing the number of fatalities in Bangladesh from 280 per thousand to 75 per thousand in a period of 10 years. It has extended microcredit in 11 of the world's poorest nations. Dairy and food projects, a printing press and a salt production operation, and Aarong, a retail craft project started by Abed's late wife help sustain BRAC. These businesses encourage artisan entrepreneurship. BRAC University and BRAC Bank contribute to training a future generation of leaders.

What impressed me the most was BRAC's Non-Formal Primary education. Children ranging in age from eight to fourteen can come to the school to learn basic skills such as Math, English, Bangla and History. The schools feature parent meetings where important information concerning parenting, health issues and an understanding of the educational process are taught to parents unfamiliar with the concept of formal learning (i.e. proper care for textbooks, health care issues, and the importance of attendance). The schools are meticulously clean, decorated with children's artwork, and are well-monitored and uniform.

As a child, I always fantasized about meeting Benjamin Franklin, the innovative genius of my nation, whose brain-children included the Post Office, US Currency, Fire Departments and libraries. I think that on the blank slate of burgeoning national identity, Fazle Hasan Abed is Franklin's equal. No American has ever heard his name, yet as I enumerate his accomplishments, many in my circle proclaim that they have discovered a new hero.

And how can I take action which will honour this great man? I cannot change the lives of three million children, but if I attend to one extra human being as if he or she were related, perhaps that child, or her child or grandchild, could become the hero who continues the job that Fazle Hasan Abed began. Or, I can contribute by innovating, by implementing ideas here that could be applied to help the world at large.

As day three on the mountain dawns, it is time for my children to gather up the tarps and blankets, and for my son to rejoin us. As we descend the mountain, we return to our problems and concerns. Sophocles said, "Wonders are many and none is more wonderful than mankind". Our small band, four out of seven billion human beings, head back to rejoin the struggle that begins with love, grows through learning, and results in making our mutual existence less impoverished.

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Frank Domenico Cipriani writes a weekly column in the Riverside Signal called "You Think What You Think And I'll Think What I Know." He is also the founder and CEO of The Gatherer Institute — a not-for-profit public charity dedicated to promoting respect for the environment and empowering individuals to become self-taught and self-sufficient. His most recent book, "Learning Little Hawk's Way of Storytelling", teaches the native art of oral tradition storytelling.