The Queen's Young Leaders 2017

Photos: Orchid chakma

"Change is a youth-led development agency working in the field of green innovations, alternative & renewable energy research, water security and social business development. We involve youths directly with our projects and activities which help them to develop confidence, improve project management capacity and nurture creativity. Since September, 2012 Change has been working with various national and international development cooperation and acquired goodwill by implementing project successfully. Change is also the global partner of Liter of Light which is working in more than 37 countries promoting low cost affordable lighting solutions. We developed efficiency improvement ideas for urban slums and industries known as Solar Bottle Light and Solar Pipe Light, affordable local solar lanterns, UV solar water purifiers, local solar irrigation pumps and solar street lights. Our main mission is to address social and environmental crisis with locally adaptable and affordable ideas. Our vision is to strengthen local capacity and innovations to address challenges in a sustainable manner. We strongly believe simplicity could be the best solution to meet any mega crisis." – SAJID IQBAL. 

As the year comes to an end, many look back at 2016 and wonder if things can be better in the coming year. Well, for Sajid Iqbal and Rahat Hossain, 2017 looks a lot better already! These two young Bangladeshi entrepreneurs and change-makers have recently won the Queen's Young Leaders Programme for 2017. 

A programme that discovers, celebrates and supports talented young people across the commonwealth, according to queensyoungleaders.com, for both Sajid founder of Change and Rahat co-founder of CriticaLink, the award means so much more than just flying all the way to London to meet the quest! The award is an opportunity for them to do more for the country and to do better.

"I applied for the award six months ago," says Sajid. "After going through several stages and interviews, they final announcement was made a couple of weeks ago. I was ecstatic!"

"With CriticaLink, a project founded over two years ago, I am focusing on training and developing the awareness and skills of young people from Bangladesh for first aid and readiness to help others in emergency situations and connecting them to a specially created notification system for emergencies. In Bangladesh, due to the lack of sufficient emergency medical services, an estimated 20,000 people die every year from road accidents. By developing a mobile application to report accidents and emergency needs and also a system to alert nearby CriticaLink First Responders, we are now able to provide first aid to accident victims and help transport the patient to the hospital if needed. Since the launch in March 2015, we have trained over 2600 youth volunteers as First Responders in a 3-day intensive training and have a record of over 1000 patients rescued in Dhaka city alone." – RAHAT HOSSAIN.

The Queen's Young Leader Award recognises people aged between 18-29 from across the Commonwealth, who are taking the lead in their communities and using their skills to transform lives. "I got to know about this award from previous winners and also from the website," says Rahat. "The Young Leaders Award opens application every year around July. There is an online application that consists of different types of questions regarding your work and the social impact you make."

Both Sajid and Rahat have been encouraging the youth in Dhaka and elsewhere to come forward and work for their respective communities. Winning the Queen's Leadership Award is simply a step forward and also an extra cheer for the same young changemakers and entrepreneurs to build confidence, accept challenges and implement ideas to better society.