Our ambassador in Bangladesh, Md. Mehedi Hasan Khan explains how he became involved in CommonAge and how his experiences of two international conferences have helped him create new opportunities and given him inspiration in his work.
“I first came to know about CommonAge in 2017 when the notice of the 2017 Global Ageing Network/CURAVIVA,s Global Aged Care Conference was declared.
I applied for the bursary to attend the conference and nominated as a CommonAge Ambassador in Bangladesh. I was tremendously encouraged as I am professionally involved in ageing research and teaching at the Department of Population Sciences, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
My participation in the Global Aged Care Conference in Montreux, Switzerland, 18-21, September 2017 was eye opening as it was my first participation in a population ageing related international conference.
I was the only participant from Bangladesh where almost 8 percent people are aged, which constitutes a huge 13 million people.
The most remarkable event of my participation was my exposure to modern technology related to taking care of the older people. I was privileged to participate in the CommonAge Annual General Meeting where I also had the opportunity to present a paper on ‘Population ageing and aged care scenario of Bangladesh’.
I had the opportunity to meet the people of Global Ageing Network and CommonAge. One such meeting was with Ingrid Eyers, who encouraged me to participate in the aged story telling project of CommonAge, and is now a published book entitled A Common Wealth of Experience, Freedom fighters, child brides and other untold real life stories’.
I was able to motivate some of my students to submit to this project and five stories from my students have been published in this very interesting and important piece of aged people related book of the Common Wealth countries. (Download the book for free here.)
I replicate this experience in my class on Population Ageing and I am getting many, many interesting stories of the aged people of my country.
Besides, the young students have also got some very extraordinary impression and experience about the ageing process through doing this academic activity.
CommonAge encouraged me again to participate in the Commonwealth Elders’ Forum National Care Forum Annual Conference on Ageing in Common: An International Perspective Conference 2018 in UK on 16-18 April 2018. It was again a great professional experience.
The very multidisciplinary dimension of population ageing was becoming visible to me through participating in this conference.
My exposure to CommonAge has impacted my professional activities tremendously.
I try to convey my learning in my workplace through my classroom teaching, research and other related activities.
My achieved experience and efficiency enabled me to present and write research papers on ageing issues in national and international levels.
Some international and national organisations have also contacted me to contribute to their activities on ageing issues.
All these activities, at the end of the day, are aimed at the amelioration of the sufferings of a great number of aged people in Bangladesh. CommonAge and other related experience has given me confidence to do my professional activities with more conviction and dedication.”
