Rickshaw puller’s family gets food supplies for 15 days

Bashundhara Shuvosangho provided food supplies for 15 days to the family of a poor rickshaw puller at Kazir Bazar village in Gopalganj Sadar Upazila on Thursday.

Shahjahan Faridi, 46, lives at a house under the government’s Ashrayan project. He is also involved with an orphanage-cum-madrasa that he helped found.

However, due to a change of fate since the madrasa establishment, he now struggles to cater even for his own family.

His two sons – Habib, 5, and Nowshad, 3 – are autistic, while the elderly mother needs costly medicines every day. He also has a daughter and wife in the household.

The family requires Tk200-a-day medicine bill, making it difficult to pay for other daily necessities. The problem becomes more acute in Ramadan, when people curtail travel expenses to pay for food and overall passengers are low due to vacations at educational institutions.

In this backdrop, Shuvosangho members reached the house to donate food items including rice, puffed rice, flattened rice, lentils, salt, potato, chickpeas, chickpea flour, vermicelli, dates, powder milk, noodles, soybean oil, soap, onion, garlic, ginger, green chili, cucumber, tomatoes, eggplant, bottle gourd, cauliflower and more.

Shahjahan Faridi said, “I offer countless thanks to Allah for the assistance that Bashundhara has provided today for me amid these difficult times.”

His wife, Begum Latifa Khanom, said, “My two sons are disabled. For the past few days, they have been asking for alur chop, beguni, and piyaju. Today, with the items you have given, I will prepare iftar to meet their aspirations. I will pray for everyone at Bashundhara Group.”

The organisation’s Vice-President Rajib Molla said, “I have recently joined this organisation. I feel happy to be part of today’s humanitarian initiative. Alongside my business activities, I pledge to spend whatever time I can with Bashundhara Shuvosangho in such humanitarian work.”

Sujon Das, the newly elected President of Bashundhara Shuvosangho’s Gopalganj district unit, said, “Every year during the month of Ramadan, Bashundhara Group provides food and various forms of assistance to the poor and destitute. With their prayers and support, such humanitarian activities will continue in the future.”