Saad Hammadi finds out how Osama Bin Noor turned his weakness into strength through his work to become the only Bangladeshi in the 2016 Forbes ‘30 under 30’ and winner of Queen’s Young Leaders Award
Rejection has come in abundance than being chosen in case of Osama Bin Noor but when he was finally chosen, he became the only Bangladeshi to make it in the 2016 Forbes ‘30 under 30’ social entrepreneurs and the Queen’s Young Leaders Award in UK.
A website Osama co-founded to facilitate young people with information about different youth programmes across the world helped him earn recognition as a social entrepreneur. The recognition came much later.
‘I applied for the programmes myself while posting them on the website but sadly I had no luck,’ says Osama. The only international conference he attended was the South Asian Youth Conference in 2011, which was in Bangalore, India. Sometimes even his younger acquaintances would make into some of the programmes he applied but he did not.
Osama was rejected US visa to attend a mentor-driven capacity enrichment programme held in Seattle last November, which was the only other international event he qualified.
He believes his name – the first couple of words matching with name of an international terrorist – was responsible for many of the rejections. His name became his weakness but ‘I wanted to turn my weakness into strength through my work,’ says the 25-year-old, who devoted himself to every volunteering opportunity he has come across since 2010.
In 2014, Osama co-founded youthop.com – a website that provides information about different youth opportunities including scholarships, conferences, competitions and workshops – which started paying off for the efforts he put in. The site frequented by visitors across the world receives traffic of roughly 20,000 visitors every day.
Lights eventually turned Osama’s way. A month after he was rejected US visa, last December, Osama was informed by the British High Commission in Dhaka about being selected in the Queen’s Young Leaders Award, which he is due to receive on June 23 for his website. Osama is among 60 recipients of the award from 53 countries.
In February, he received a message on his LinkedIn informing him about being shortlisted for the 2016 Forbes ‘30 under 30’ social entrepreneurs. ‘I did not believe when I received a message in LinkedIn telling me that I was shortlisted for the Forbes list. I thought it was a spam message until I confirmed the lady writing me was indeed from Forbes,’ says Osama.
Currently, a dental student, Osama completed his secondary and higher secondary schools from Tanjimul Ummah Cadet Madrassah and Tamirul Millat Kamil Madrassah respectively, which is one of the most segregated mediums of education in the country. Coping up with peers from other academic backgrounds or the mainstream society becomes typically a difficult task for anyone coming out of madrassah.
Osama pushed those limits by engaging himself in wider social services. In early 2010, when five persons died of cold wave in Nilphamari, the incident struck Osama. The 19-year-old at the time with the help of his friends reached out to troubled people in Nilphamari and distributed 200 blankets. That was only the beginning of his social outreach.
In the coming days, through a friend he learnt about a cycling programme of One Degree Initiative that was designed to campaign for environment-friendly streets. Afterwards he participated in the flagship Building Bridges Through Leadership progamme of Bangladesh Youth Leadership Centre and also volunteered for programmes of Jaago and Volunteer for Bangladesh. The list of his participation in voluntary programmes only continued from there.
Coming from a madrassah background, Osama did not have too many opportunities to meet people. ‘More than opportunities, I had a mental barrier,’ he tells New Age Youth which these programmes and friends he met through these events helped him overcome.
‘I couldn’t have spoken to you the same way I am doing now, five years ago,’ he says, adding how his father, a university professor of Islamic ethics, inspired him most to overcome his stage frights. ‘My father practiced delivering speech in empty mosque, by riverside and open spaces,’ he says, explaining how these stories helped him get a grasp of speaking in public.
Ironically, Osama is now co-host of a two-hour radio show called Teen-Tekka, which airs every Tuesday from 11:00pm on ColoursFM.
Among his voluntary experiences Osama recalls his participation in the ICC World Twenty20 held in Bangladesh in 2014. ‘While many had prejudices, I enjoyed my tasks, which ranged from cleaning field to serving beverages to players, checking food and carrying trophies from locker to the field,’ he shares with New Age Youth.
Through a friend in an event management firm that was part of organising the cricket world cup, Osama found opportunity to volunteer in the largest cricket event. Volunteers in Bangladesh are often consumed with financial benefits and are referred as ‘paid volunteers’, which makes an oxymoron of the term and practice. ‘This is also my question but I still have not found an answer,’ says Osama.
Osama’s interest however, was in meeting with legendary players of the likes of Lasith Malinga, Wasim Akram, Shaun Pollock and Nasir Hussain. ‘I was very pleased to meet the captain of England’s women cricket team,’ says Osama, while a friend of his adds that she even hugged him.
Coming from a lower middle class family and studying in madrassah, Osama has been always pushing his limits to reach new heights. His family has been so conservative that the perception of anyone using internet was generally considered bad. ‘The first time I used internet, my father told my mother that I had gone in ruins.’
Time however, has changed. ‘My father did not let me touch a laptop and last week he offered me to take his laptop when I go to the UK,’ he concludes.