“The youths are assets for Bangladesh. There is no youth like us in other countries of the globe. So we should invest more here and skill up them to forward the country,” Enamur was addressing this at an event on “Youth Engagement in Disaster Risk Reduction (Y-DRR), Season-2:  Preventing Pandemic and Social Disasters in Bangladesh” city organized by BRAC Humanitarian Programme (BHP) in the city.

The State Minister said extreme poverty, rape cases and gender discrimination have increased in the country due to Coronavirus pandemic.  “There is no problem to tackle coronavirus pandemic. The government took various problems as well. We are in a good position compared to India, Pakistan and USA. But our problems are poverty, employment and socio economic impact by the COVID-19,” he added.

 Enamur Rahman said the country’s youths always come forward to fight against all disasters. So they should be recognized. Then they will encourage to work here. “I also talked to the committee of Swadhinata Puroskar in this regard. However, 27 volunteers died of coronavirus. Besides, youths work in remote area during natural disasters. So we have to shelter and provide food for them,” he also said.

Also read: ‘National Urban Community Volunteer Database 2020’ has been finalized

He added many youths complain to us that they don’t get proper service through 999. “So, we have to create another “app” with help from the ICT department.  A platform is needed for the youths to work for the country,” he also added.

He further said most domestic violence occurred following over use of gadgets and staying at home during the pandemic. So people should play more to relax from mental pressure.

Also read: Perform duty of volunteers, State Minister urges young generation

A recent study conducted by BRAC shows that there were 6,197 reported cases of violence against women between January and June 2020, which is 8% higher for the same period of 2019.

 A total of 632 rape incidents took place between April and August this year, which means, on an average, 4 women have been raped every day in five-month of during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Also read: 15 youth volunteers awarded

Sajedul Hasan, Director of Humanitarian Programme, BRAC and BRAC International shared that BRAC will work to create a platform for the youths through which these groups can work to stand beside the people who need the support in times of crises.

He recommended creating a database for these youth groups who would like to work as a volunteer in different disasters in different regions. “Along with these, these groups can disseminate awareness messages via community radios in local languages and reach the root level of people,” he added.

Also read: Kalidas Roy, Sathy Aktar honoured with the IVD Bangladesh Volunteer Award

Md Tawohidul Haque, Assistant Professor of Institute of Social Welfare and Research at Dhaka University shared that there are a number of reasons behind each social problem. “We need to sort out those root reasons and must work on those reasons at first in order to limit the problems. If we can control the reasons, only then these problems can be erased. We can collectively work to solve these social problems,” he added.