House of Volunteers Foundation Bangladesh

Story of HOV
House of Volunteers was co-founded at MIT in 2007 by a then-PhD
student, Sudipta Sarkar. Along with community members Aminul
Haque, Ashirul Amin and Adnan Yusuf as non-MIT members, HoV was
established to devise low cost, high impact educational solutions for
Bangladesh. Almost at inception, a fourth contributor signed on
enthusiastically from Bangladesh: Ahsanullah Khan Faisal. As a recent
graduate from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology,
he had contacts within the student body at his alma mater, thus
providing HoV with its first group of volunteers.
HoV was and is all about volunteerism. The core premise was that
students have boundless energy: if channeled properly, it could be
harnessed to do immense good in society while imparting a sense of
accomplishment to contributors. As well, by cutting down on overhead
this way, a majority of the funds collected for community work could be
used for just that.
Through Faisal, the BUET chapter of HoV was formally established on
March 2008. The first project undertaken by the then-fledgeling
organization straddling continents was the Open Source Computer
Education Project (OSCEP) -- the first such project was opened at
Joynagar in Comilla in November of 2008.
The second project undertaken was the Book Drive -- collecting
volumes discarded by libraries in the US and distributing them amongst
universities in Bangladesh. The third project was iSchool, designed to
make topics covered under board curriculum easier and more intuitive
to understand by using interactive visual aids.

What We Do
HoV focuses of devising low-cost, high-impact solutions to empower
the education sector in underdeveloped communities around the world.
HoV encourages volunteerism and creativity amongst students and
youth in these communities through active partnership during all
stages of implementation of a project.
HOV works in a collaborative model and provides a volunteering
platform for university students on skill based activities, which go
beyond conventional volunteering activity. HOV encourages personal
growth amongst members by giving them an opportunity to work on
solving real-world problem around them, endorsing empowers by
lending voice to their ideas and opinions, and hopes to install in them a
need, an urgency to help others as well as providing a platform for
networking.
Along these lines, HoV is currently working on four projects in
Bangladesh:

Books for Bangladesh (Book Drive)

Open Source Computer Education Program (OSCEP)
Earthquake Awareness Program (EAP)
Bangladesh Stockholm Junior Water Prize (SJWP,BD)
Skill Shop
We expect the lessons learnt from these to eventually be applicable
across similar communities in need worldwide.

About Our Current Projects

The 4 major programs of HOV Bangladesh are -
1. Open Source Computer Education Program (OSCEP):
it aims to promote computer skills amongst school children in rural,
impoverished areas. Each school gets a lab with customized software
and hardware, teachers are trained on curriculum designed for it, and
students are then imparted with the basics of computer and internet
usage. Future plans include introducing interactive media and
educational games to students.
At present, there are 5 such centers running under this program
located in Sylhet, Comilla and Dinajpur. Two centers in Sylhet had been
established with CHEVRON sponsorship and Dinajpur center under
Global Education Fund(GEF) of MacEwan University, Canada.

2. Earthquake Awareness Program (EAP):

It aims to promote earthquake awareness amongst children from
schools in densely populated Dhaka neighborhoods. Volunteers conduct
informative sessions at these schools on earthquakes: what they are,
why they happen, how to prepare, and what to do in the aftermath.
Given the recent spate of frequent tremors Dhaka has experienced,
this is crucial information that is expected to propagate through the
children to their families, friends and neighbors.
In 2012, HOV Bangladesh conducted earthquake awareness campaigns
on pilot basis at two schools of old Dhaka which covered 2000
students. In continuation of this endeavor a project titled Earthquake
Awareness Program for School Going Children has been initiated with
the support of EMK Center, Dhaka. From the launching of this project in
April 2013, the project has trained 147 volunteers as presenters across
5 universities through training of trainers (ToT) program. Then total of
4,683 students and 99 teachers were given the knowledge on
earthquake preparedness by organizing 10 Earthquake Awareness
Campaigns at 9 schools located in old Dhaka. In total, we covered 6500
students under the EAP. HOV has a plan to scale up this initiative by
including more schools in earthquake prone areas and also building
capability for community awareness in future.

3. Book Drive:
We collected books donated by individuals, libraries and other
organizations in the United States and ships them to Dhaka, where
they are distributed amongst colleges and universities as needed. This
is a yearly endeavor that is still in the process of evolving into a full-
fledged project.
HOV Bangladesh distributed 10,000 Books and Journals among 20
medical colleges and public universities in 2012 under this Book Drive.
4. Bangladesh Stockholm Junior Water Prize (SJWPBD):
This is the latest project undertaken by HoV,BD. The Stockholm Junior
Water Prize, Bangladesh (SJWPBD) is a national competition where the
winning team represents Bangladesh at the Stockholm Junior Water
Prize in Sweden.
The international Stockholm Junior Water Prize (SJWP) contest is held
during the World Water Week in Stockholm each August and gathers
the worlds brightest young minds to create real solutions for the global
water crisis. Thousands of participants from more than 30 countries
compete for a spot in the international finals. Here, finalists get to meet
other water innovators, make lasting connections and are inspired to
solve global water problems. The goal of the competition is to inspire
young people to engage in water and environmental issues.
The winner at SJWPBD is deliberated by a panel of adjudicators
supplied by House of Volunteers Foundation, Bangladesh (HoV
Bangladesh), which was nominated by Stockholm International Water
Institute (SIWI) as the national organizer of SJWP for Bangladesh.

Chapters
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET)
University of Dhaka (DU)
 Ahsanullah University of Science & Technology (AUST)

The Future
House of Volunteers has continually designed and implemented more
programs over the past few years to meet the needs of the day. The
Earthquake Awareness Program was launched to raise awareness about
the threat of earthquakes, and instructions on what to do in the event
of one. A partnership with the Stockholm Junior Water Prize
organization was forged to encourage young thinkers to ponder on the
most valuable resource: water. HoV will continue to strive to meet
similar challenges the future may pose. It also aims at bigger and more
involved contributions from students all across the country and also
professionals.