Williamsport teen raising awareness for refugee crisis
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MARK NANCE/Sun-Gazette
Williamsport Area High School sophomore Abheet Sarker holds a stack of flyers for his fundraiser for Bangali refugee camps at the YMCA.
Abheet Sarker, 15, and his parents, Fahmi Rahman and Ishraque Shawon, internal medicine physicians, are hosting an event to spread awareness about the Rohingya Crisis in Bangladesh, Wednesday, March 11 from 6 to 7 p.m. at the local YMCA.
The event will include a presentation done by Sarker including a story about an orphan girl that he met while in Bangladesh and information to educate locals about the current crisis. At the event, the family will also be serving authentic Bengali food for free.
"In South East Asia, Myanmar, there is a huge refugee crisis," Rahman said. "This minority group, the Rohingya, are subjected. In 2017, was the third wave."
"It's hurtful to see that," Shawon added.
Rahman added that today in the United States, the crisis is still misunderstood, even though the crisis is the most concentrated crisis in the world at this time. Over two million people have fled to Bangladesh.
"A lot of people do not know about this crisis," Fahmi Rahman said. "Me and my son are involved in helping these folks. We go to a camp there and are involved first hand."
Sarker, alongside Rahman, have been to Bangladesh to help in these refugee camps. Rahman helped provide free healthcare and Sarker helped the orphans at the school in the area. The first time Sarker went with his father, he was just 13 years old and witnessed disease, death, famine and trauma.
"It was very devastating," Sarker said. "There were people that were starving, they were dying of these diseases that were thought to already be eradicated. There is a lot of death, disease and very few rations. They get a bag of rice per hut per month and every hut has about three to four families in it."
He added that there were orphans that were unattended and had no shelter besides school.
"It was like a nightmare," he said.
Sarker has been fundraising through a fundraising page, but this event and his presentation about the crisis will hopefully not only bring in donations, but will also bring awareness to the crisis in the state.
"Because after seeing something like that you can't forget about it. It just stays with you unless you can do something about it," he said.
This summer, Sarker hopes to return with Rahman to Bangladesh to provide the funds he has raised to pay for food, shelter and anything else the refugees would need.
Rahman added that his family is from Bangladesh and this crisis brings strong feelings and holds a strong tie with the country, his family and the culture.
For more information, the family hopes you will join them at the YMCA on March 11 for Sarker's presentation and donate at https://www.gofundme.com/f/represent-the-rohingya.