Alternatives abroad for a living

Maswood Alam Khan

Some years back I had an amusing experience aboard a Kuala Lumpur-bound plane. A young man was muttering: Apaa Khabar? Apaa Khabar?...Toomi Kemon Aso? Toomi Kemon Aso? (How are you?) Khabar Baek, Khabar Baek ...Ami Bhalo Asi, Ami Bhalo Asi, (I am fine).
   I thought the young man had gone mad mumbling some mantras out of his claustrophobia as I heard him murmuring those words, seated on his chair in a Boeing aircraft back in 1995. Later, on my frank enquiry, I came to learn that it was his maiden journey by air on his way to Malaysia from Bangladesh to work there as a wage-earner; by rote he was learning some functional Malay phrases well before his plane landed at Kuala Lumpur. I was simply flabbergasted by a dogged learner of a foreign language!
   During my three and a half-year stint in Kuala Lumpur as Chief Representative of Agrani Bank in Malaysia I failed to learn Malay to claim that alien tongue as my second language, even after taking a course to pick up the language. On the other hand, Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia, who knew no language other than their mother tongue, had their command of Malay so fast that one of my Malaysian (Chinese by race) friends told me that some Bangladeshis working in his factory were much better in Malay language in verbal communication than even the Chinese who are born citizens in Malaysia.
   Exports have gone up, so has remittances from expatriate Bangladeshi wage earners. Success in exports of RMG, manpower and shrimps has opened our eyes to a secret that the job a machine cannot do and where human hands are more powerful than a robot is possible for all our unemployed people to perform, if only we knew how to reinforce our wishes to help toughen their hands with some skills.
   Given the trend of globalisation, burgeoning purchase capacity of consumers, expansion of market for quality products and services and countries like China and India continuously whetting their products to turn those into cheap and at the same time durable and attractive self-employed micro entrepreneurs in our country may find it difficult to survive if they cling for long to their traditional cottage industries.
    The widow who took a skimpy loan of Taka 5000 from an NGO to fry moori by parching rice in hot sands would simply be crushed under the giant steps of a big player like Praan Group who, for example, may churn out moori frying tons of rice in their enormous automatic furnaces in a matter of minutes, unless we don't help the widow find an alternative trade path where a pirate player has not yet cast his predatory eyes.
   Fortunately, for our young boys and girls, who are too poor to start a micro business, there are still some niches where robotic hands cannot reach and economies of scale cannot compete. One such area is labor-intensive and the other knowledge-intensive. A healthy young boy who can lift heavy loads by his hands or drive a taxicab in inclement weather or a young girl who is a certified nurse is always of great demand anywhere in the world.
   We should note, population growth in most of the developed countries is negative and trend of life longevity there is highly positive resulting in a hyper growth of ageing people. Developed countries have already been experiencing acute shortages of young, sturdy and trained people in areas, for example, like waste management, a colossal domain that demands millions of unskilled young people.
   On the other hand, there is also an acute shortage of certified nurses all over the world. With eyes open to such overseas vacancies leaders of countries like ours, blessed with huge populations, must groom young boys and girls accordingly, who otherwise could not, cannot or should not prosecute higher studies in universities.
   It is heartening to learn that Bangladesh is exporting manpower to Canada. Our government must take extra precautions so that instances of corruption that foiled in the past many lucrative ventures of exporting manpower to different countries like Italy, Japan, and Korea are not repeated in case of manpower export to North America. Proper handling of this manpower export venture to Canada may pave future ways for our youths to earn wages in other developed countries in America, Europe and Australia.
   Bangladesh exported around 5 million people across the world from 1976 till April 2007 and expects US$ 8 billion as remittances from them by the end of the current financial year. Bangladeshi wage earners should be accorded Maharaja's reception in red carpets whenever they come home, as they are the best and the safest cash cows for our export earnings.
   Many countries set up programmes to invite guest workers whenever they face shortage of manpower, both skilled and unskilled. Under such a programme more than one million guest workers mostly from Italy, Spain and Turkey were attracted to Federal Republic of Germany from 1955 till 1973.
   With declining growth of population and burgeoning growth of aged people with much longer than expected life longevity (thanks to unprecedented advancement of medical science) in almost all the developed countries and with better education acquired by students from poor countries at their homes and abroad countries like USA, Canada, Korea, Japan, Italy and many other countries in Asia, Australia and Africa are presently encouraging migration under programmes like H-1B visa in USA and similar visa programmes elsewhere.
   A rare window of opportunity is now open when our government must facilitate the employment agencies and individuals to scout around and avail of alternative overseas employments for our unemployed and underemployed youths. Of course, we should also see that there is no suicidal brain drains as a result and our people are not subjected to abuses by some employers in some countries where, for instance, migrant domestic workers working for wealthy families cannot change jobs as their passports are withheld by the employers who treat the workers as good as their possessions or as soft as their personal baggage.
   Our government, in 2002, amended a few immigration rules liberalising females to apply for jobs in all the countries of the Middle East. Hundreds of Bangladeshi females, as a result of amended rules, are now remitting hard currencies as wage-earners in many Arabian countries. Skilled female workers like nurses and other technical professionals, though very few in number have already established their proficiencies in many countries.
   According to a rough estimate about 25 million people, along with a comparable number of dependents accompanying them, are working as foreign or guest workers all over the world of which about 14 million, including 4 or 5 million undocumented workers, are engaged in the United States alone. There are, nevertheless, 5 million foreign workers serving in Saudi Arabia and 5 million in Northwestern Europe and not less than 500 thousand in Japan. Professional experts like physicians and engineers, blue-collar workers, language teachers and entertainers mostly constitute the international foreign workers.
   Whereas 48 per cent of global migrant workers are female we could not send abroad as female wage earners even 1 per cent of Bangladeshi migrant workers though 90 percent of the Philippine, 80 percent of the Indonesian and 75 per cent of the Sri Lankan migrant workers are female. We will have to incur irrecoverable opportunity cost if we fail to undertake a crash program of training potential females as nurses and experts in various trades and vocations and send them abroad as wage earners on a par with our neighboring countries.
   
   Lucrative nursing
   Some 8 million Filipinos, almost 10 per cent of the Philippine population, left their homeland to seek work abroad and are remitting home an average of about US$10 billion a year, which represents 13.5 percent of the country's GDP. Their jobs often include nursing, technology, fishing and teaching, although a third are composed of unskilled workers.
   There is not a single developed country in the world where fluent English speaking Filipino maids babysitting children or taking care of household chores cannot be found. On the same count, hosts of Filipinas, after graduating and having work experiences, are leaving homes on their ways to developed countries in North America and Europe as certified nurses, a profession so lucrative on account of pay and prestige that even Filipina doctors undergo retraining to become nurses.
   One public examination that roars their country, somewhat akin to SSC examination in our country, is the Philippine Nursing Licensure Examination, a multiple choice exam to test basic nursing level competency, held two times every year: June and December. Holders of a Bachelor's Degree in Nursing from a college or university that complies with the international standards of nursing education sweat buckets to answer hundreds of quizzes to secure at least 75 per cent marks in each of a number of Test Modules ranging from 'Historical perspectives in nursing' and 'Care of clients with altered health patterns' down to 'Ethical-moral-legal responsibility' and 'Emergency and disaster nursing', etc.
   Once passed the exam, the nurses first gather work experiences in their own country for one year or two and then sit for another exam called CGFNS (a globally conducted test to determine nurses' proficiency levels) which they easily pass to gain eligibility for Visa Screen Certification, a pre-requisite to obtaining a US occupational visa. Filipinas effortlessly blend with any hospital environment in any corner of the world where English is allowed as a medium of communication. The Philippines is the only country in the world where almost 80 percent of population can converse in their second language, English, thanks to a long period of American colonial rule over the country, though their mother tongue is Filipino.
   In this age of globalisation one who is eager to change his/her fate must learn at least two languages in addition to his/her mother tongue. Smelling mountains of money in China westerners are learning Mandarin and it may not be a surprise if Mandarin, in a matter of years, replaces English as the world's best lingua franca! Unless we make second and third language courses compulsory in both elementary and secondary schools and colleges our youths would be skidded off in the global races for survival.
   I have seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears a boy of my own soil parroting "Apa Khabar?" ("Tumi Kemon Aso?") (How are you?) while on his maiden journey by air to Kuala Lumpur. So, I can bet my bottom dollar that our boys and girls would perform three times better in mastering a language or qualifying in CGFNS compared to Filipinas or Koreans, if only our government today announces that licenses of all the private universities and private clinics would be cancelled if they, as a collective venture, fail to open within three months departments and laboratories for tutoring courses on nursing and on English, French and Spanish languages at discounted prices (or subsidized by the government) and set up a few centers in Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi where our experienced nurses can appear first in National Nursing Licensure Exam, then in IELTS (a test to determine proficiency in English) and later in CGFNS Test. At the end of the next financial year, as a yield, the coffer of Bangladesh Bank will be filled with at least US$ 10 billion, I am sure 100 per cent.
   May I, please, dream forward to the day when after arriving at the Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport as I would be groping for a way out in the colossal Car Terminal a Bangladeshi young girl in her teens, for instance, from Golachipa upazilla of Barisal pops up her 'head with a ponytail' out the window on the driver's side and speak out aloud: Je suis un chauffeur de taxi. Puis-je vous aider, monsieur? (I am a taxicab driver. May I help you, sir?)?

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Finding a needle in a haystack

Saad Quasem

Many say President Bush and President Clinton are nothing alike. But, as Presidents they failed to appreciate the genocides of their decade. The Rwanda genocide lasted a few months till peace was restored. On the other hand the Darfur conflict has been attacking humankind since 2003.
   This time the world has finally fallen into place, organised their act and decided to send peacekeeping troops. Nevertheless, it took more than four years, 200, 000 lives, a homeless populace of 2.5 million, the leakage of the conflict to neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic for the United Nations to send peace keeping troops.
   However, there is little the peace keeping forces can do to a place that has been socially and economically disrupted since recorded history. Additionally the peacekeepers really have no magic wand to solve the dilemma that prevails throughout Sudan, not only Darfur. The republic of Sudan is divided by the North and the South.
   The Janjaweed (the Arab-Rebel group) began the mass murder of Africans in the Darfur area since 2003. Their motive is to remove all Africans from Sudan. Two and a half million people are homeless and countless numbers of them have been raped, looted, harassed, abused, beaten, charged and have all been subjected to similar cruel objects.
   The end of last July and the beginning of August flickered the light at the end of tunnel, but by then the damage had been well done. The northerners and southerners sat at peace talks which had stalled before the second civil war. The United Nations ratified the deployment of peacekeeping troops in Darfur. The African Union welcomed this gesture, but will only allow African troops. It might be too late and too little, considering the fact that Colin Powell had described this crisis as "genocide" in September, 2004.
   Ever since, the United Nations was reluctant to send troops and the debate followed for years until the first week of August, 2007. Finally after much pressure the bill was ratified by the Security Council. The real question is: can anything really be done? Generations upon generations will hold anti-Arab or anti-African sentiments that may lead to further problems. This tradition of hatred has been interwoven into the culture of the respective groups. The largely agricultural population would still have problems, such as lack of resources, with global warming the droughts could last longer. These elongated natural disasters will not bring any blessings. Sharing is certainly not caring in this part of the world. The government that sponsored the Janjaweed, will also ally with the rest of the world to disarm the faction. If such a thing happens, it should be a fruitful development. In reality, however, the same government is in power and not much has changed in governance. The International Herald Tribune has named this peacekeeping plea "A First Step to Save Darfur." Hopefully, there will be other steps in the future, but as of now a full solution of the problem is close to finding a needle in a haystack!

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Dr Turin Chowdhury

Cholesterol is a type of fat or lipid that is crucial to many metabolic processes in our body. It is a waxy substance that occurs in cell walls everywhere in the body. Nearly all the tissues of the body especially Liver can produce cholesterol.
   Fats, which are saturated, are very unhealthy and are usually solid or almost solid at room temperature. These fats make the body produce more cholesterol. All animal fats, such as those in meat, poultry, and dairy products are of this type. It is important to note that these fats raise cholesterol levels more than food cholesterol itself. Food cholesterol comes from animal products such as eggs, meat, squid, lobster, crayfish, prawns, full fat dairy foods, brain, liver and kidney. Food from plants like fruits, vegetables and cereals don't have cholesterol.
   
   Cholesterol is essential
   * To form cell membranes. It also helps the cell to resist changes in temperature and protects and insulates nerve fibers.
   * For formation of sex hormones.
   * To produce bile salts that help to digest food.
   * Conversion of vitamin D in the skin when exposed to sunlight.
   
   Narrow drainpipe
   Cholesterol can act both as good and bad, so it is important to know what cholesterol is, how it affects our health and how to manage our blood cholesterol levels.
   Increased level of blood LDL-cholesterol has been associated with the build-up of plaques that can narrow or even block blood vessels. As for example we can think about what happens to our kitchen drainpipes when we continuously pour oil, chicken fat or other oily extracts of our daily cooking down the drain pipe.
   The fat substances get accumulated in the pipe's inner wall. The more the time goes the more the accumulation increases. As a result the inner space of the drainpipe becomes relatively narrow. And now imagine the same happening in our blood vessels!
   As a consequence, if the vessels of the heart become blocked, this means that less blood and oxygen are getting to our heart. This can lead to chest pain and heart attacks. . A blocked blood vessel in the brain can trigger a stroke. So, too much LDL cholesterol increases our risk of heart attack and stroke.
   On the other hand, the HDL helps keep cholesterol from building up in the walls of the arteries. It carries cholesterol back to liver, thus cleaning the blood. Think of this as a drain cleaner you pour in the sink to clean out the fatty accumulation we discussed before. HDL cholesterol is thought to provide some protection against artery blockage.
   Hypercholesterolemia
   Increased amount of cholesterol is called as hypercholesterolemia. This is mainly attributed to the high level of LDL-cholesterol. The dangerous part of increased Cholesterol level in the body is that this condition does not produce symptoms or warning signs. It can remain undiagnosed for a long time. All adults age 20 or older should get their cholesterol tested every five years.
   
   Risk factors
   Diet: Eating foods that are high in saturated fats. This will make our body to make more cholesterol.
   Eating foods containing high levels of cholesterol. These foods directly raise blood cholesterol levels.
   Weight: Overweight people are more likely to have high blood cholesterol levels. A greater risk of increased cholesterol occurs when that extra weight is centered in the abdominal region, as opposed to the legs or buttocks.
   Genetics: Some people are genetically predisposed to having high levels of cholesterol.
   Diseases: Chronic diseases such as Diabetes, High Blood Pressure can accelerate the development of complication due to increased cholesterol level.
   Lifestyle: Factors that affect cholesterol levels also include high levels of stress, which can raise total cholesterol levels and cigarette smoking, which can lower a person's HDL
   
   Lowering cholesterol
   Diet Control: Taking the followings in consideration can be useful.
   * Eat foods that are rich in fiber like cereals, breads, rice, and noodle made from whole grains, whole wheat bread or spaghetti.
   * Increase the amounts of fresh fruit, vegetables in our daily diet.
   Remove the skin from chicken and eat lean cuts of meat.
   * Broil, bake, roast, or poach instead of frying foods.
   * Drink and use low-fat milk and low-fat dairy products in cooking.
   * Eat more egg whites and less egg yolks.
   Controlling lif style:
   * Lose any excess body fat.
   * Get lots of exercise everyday. Some examples of good ways to exercise include walking, yard work, housework, dancing, aerobic dance, running, swimming, jumping rope, and bicycling.
   * Stop smoking or excessive drinking.
   * Keeping the other chronic diseases in control, if someone is suffering from that.
   Therapeutic control: If we are diagnosed to have cholesterol problem, our physician will develop a treatment plan taking in consideration of our total health status. Diet and exercise will still play an important role. But the total process should be taken strictly under the doctor's continuous and regular supervision.

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People's right to literacy must be ensured

Dhiraj Kumar Nath

Literacy is a right of every citizen. A literate person can understand the extent of rights and realize his responsibilities. It is necessary for a nation to see its citizens literate to respond to the cause of the country.
   International Literacy Day is being observed on 8th September every year in Bangladesh like other countries round the world. The vision of the day is to create a platform for developing society's human resources and give a chance to transform individual's quality in particular. Increased literacy rate is essential to ensure the economic growth, poverty eradication, social participation and environmental protection. In many countries, the day is observed with the mission of ending poverty through education and aid.
   Thus, any government must ensure literacy to individuals considering it as a matter of right of citizens and in no way as a benevolent initiative of the Government to claim applause from the followers of a party in power.
   
   UN Literacy Decade
   United Nations Literacy Decade 2003-2012 has been declared considering the literacy as a major global challenge. While the world enters into information and knowledge based society and modern technologies developed and spread, around 860 million of adults are illiterate, over 100 million children have no access to school. Besides, countless children, youth and adults availing some education fall short of required standard could be considered literate in the modern complex world. As we know, computer literacy has emerged as a criterion of literacy in modern days.
   
   Commitment to literacy
   According to the standard of Bangladesh, a literate person is one who can read, write and calculate and be socially aware. On the basis of this yardstick, the literacy rate in Bangladesh as claimed by the GOB is around 64% but UNESCO considers it as 42 per cent only. This is also one of the low rates of literacy even if we compare ourselves with other SAARC countries.
   This state of literacy rate is considered inadequate and inconsistent to establish the right of citizens. This is also not compatible with the constitutional obligations of providing basic education to all its citizens by removing illiteracy within a given time frame. Civil society organizations and public at large are very much concerned about the initiatives of the Government to attain the targets of universal literacy by 2015.
   Primary and Mass Education Division with the support of Directorate of Non-Formal Education, Directorate of Primary Education and Compulsory Primary Education Unit has taken multi-dimensional approaches to combat illiteracy in Bangladesh but could not yet show significant improvement in the literacy rate. Similarly, National Council for Primary and Mass Education chaired by the head of the Government could not provide commendable guideline to develop a systematic infrastructure or give leadership to ensure literacy as a matter of right of the citizens.
   More than 450 NGOs and 350000 centers are working in the mass literacy campaign with substantial assistance from development partners but could not reflect remarkable improvement in the rate of literacy in comparison to investment and human resources mobilized for the purpose.
   
   Politics in literacy campaign
   On the other hand, there are massive allegations about involving politics in the local educational institutions and thereby gradually creating confusion in their management. All these manipulations and maneuverings have sharply and alarmingly deteriorated the standard of education even at the primary and foundation level.
   Under this situation, a few measures could be taken as follows:
   Ensure the optimal use of educational facilities and proper discharge of responsibilities by the manpower deployed in this sector to establish the literacy as the right of citizens.
   Learners should be empowered with technical and leadership skill and entrepreneurial traits.
   The gap between the urban and rural areas should be reduced substantially with the enrollment of more students in the rural areas and qualitative improvement of education. Equally intensive drive should be taken to bring the children of slum areas to the educational institutions of cities, municipalities and other urban localities.
   Disparity now prevailing in different localities should be removed with the approval of more schools and enlisting of more institutions under MPO scheme I the areas where number of schools are inadequate. There should be more initiatives to establish schools/ resource centers for adult education especially in the hard to reach areas of the country.
   Although there is significant improvement in the enrolment of girl student in the educational institutions with different incentive schemes in the recent past, the turn over of the adult women under the universal education scheme is even not encouraging. There could be innovative print and electronic media programs to motivate the illiterate adult women to feel attracted to the need of education even at the elderly age.
   The mass literacy program should be considered as cross-cutting issue at all segments of planning process destined to poverty alleviation and as a strategy to negotiate the assistance from development partners.
   There should be massive social movement in favor of literacy as matter of right with the generation of awareness towards its benefits and usefulness.
   There should be intensive drive to popularize literacy among indigenous groups and backward classes of population.
   
   Way forward
   Therefore, there should be initiatives and massive supports from all stakeholders and civil society organizations for which political commitment of the Government and cooperation of the public at large should considered as must.
   The coming days will therefore, emerge as challenge for Bangladesh to achieve the target of literacy as the 2nd priority of Millennium Development Goals and also to establish the same as important fundamental right of the people. For this purpose, the commitment of the Government and the cooperation of public at large must be total, intensive and explicit.

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