Ahmed Deepto tells the inspiring story of 16-year-old Moni Begum, who has made it from a school in the Kulaura village in Sylhet to deliver a speech at the United Nations General Assembly
SOURAV LASKAR
You never know what is coming towards you and how an opportunity would appear that you never thought of. Moni Begum, a 16-year-old girl who never even thought of visiting Dhaka, made an amazing trip to New York to attend the 70th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) from September 20 to 28. Moni advocated the cessation of child marriage and improving access to health care for every mother and child. Her speech was heard by 193 delegates from all over the world; among them were 160 head of states at the assembly. Moni’s slogan at the assembly was #LetHerGrow.
‘I never thought that I might come to Dhaka. And yet I had the opportunity to visit New York and meet the most influential people in the world. New York life is so busy. I have learnt so many things within the short trip,’ Moni tells New Age Youth.
Moni presented her case confidently about issues like the negative repercussions of child marriage including pregnancy related complicacies for teenagers, inaccessible healthcare, dropping out of schools, getting deprived of reproductive health rights, about the possibility of employing doctors for mothers and children at every community hospital, and making further progress on stopping preventable diseases among children.
The girl from Kulaura of Sylhet lives in a remote village of North-East part of Bangladesh with her rickshaw puller father Morom Ali and homemaker mother Hawa Begum.
Moni has been active about social issues at her school. She is a 10th grader business student at Sultanpur Girls’ High School in Sylhet and harbors the dreams of becoming a pilot, lawyer and a singer.
She is an avid reader at her school’s reading club and passionately discusses social issues with her peers. She believes in respecting the opinions of everyone. Moni got GPA 4.94 at the Junior School Certificate examination.
Besides, advocating against child marriage, Moni emphasised on issues regarding preventable diseases and drowning, a leading cause of death among children under the age of five in Bangladesh at the UN Assembly.
As part of ‘Every One Campaign’, a five-year project of Save the Children, Moni got the opportunity to attend the assembly as she was a youth leader who works in her community against child marriage and its repercussions on a girl’s life such as dropping out of schools, getting deprived of reproductive health rights. Moni also advocates for ending preventable diseases such as pneumonia and diarrhea. Initially, Moni was chosen after a question-answer session with 180 other young leaders who participated in the Save the Children project from several schools of Sylhet, Chittagong and Barisal.
Later, she was shortlisted in the top 15 and had undergone a thorough assessment process in Dhaka. ‘Dhaka Ahsania Mission and Bangladesh Pediatric Association (BPA) was also a partner in the project. They wanted to inspire youths to engage in community development by mobilizing the community to eradicate child mortality and end child marriage. Moni emerged as the deserving candidate to go to UN as a delegate. She is a determined and talented young girl. She was selected due to her confidence in speaking, writing and reading skills along with critical analysis that were better than everyone else,’ says Tahrim Zinath Chaudhury, who has chaperoned for Moni on her trip to New York.
‘Moni is intelligent, talented, confident, and she is very outspoken. She is the voice of Bangladesh. Moni never fears to speak her mind. She feels passionately about the issue of child marriages,’ Tahrim adds.
Including Moni there were 19 other child delegates from all over the world including Afghanistan, Mexico, China, Italy, Australia, Kenya, Norway, Tanzania and Nicaragua and they exchanged their thoughts on specific issues and learned about the cultures of each other. The first day was spent in familiarising the young delegates with others and helping them understand the challenges each of them face back in their countries.
Moni conveys to New Age Youth that language is not a barrier for communication. ‘Although English wasn’t the first language of the other delegates we managed to communicate well and became close friends. I am no master at English but I understood what they were saying. It was amazing! Fay, the girl from Indonesia told me what she does at school. She also talked about her boyfriend and it was amazing. Samir, from Afghanistan said that his school emphasises on learning English,’ Moni says.
Moni also conveys that she had no idea that other countries also had severe problems about the wellbeing of children and young adults.
Flora, the girl from Mexico conveyed to Moni that children are used for drug trafficking in her country. In Afghanistan, children are deprived of standard education whereas India has the problems of child trafficking.
Moni delivered her speech at the assembly on four days; each day she was allowed to speak three minutes, with a total of 12 minutes. ‘I translated her speech at the assembly. Most of her speeches were written by herself,’ Tahrim tells New Age Youth.
Moni also went to the launch of UNICEF’s #WeThePeople Media Youth Hub at the UN. She had the opportunity to meet top leaders personally at the event. She took an autograph and talked to Ban Ki Moon, secretary-general of UNGA. Moni and her fellow delegates attended the opening ceremony of UNGA where Pope Francis and Malala Yousafzai were present, and they enjoyed a live Shakira performance. She also met Save the Children CEOs from US, UK, Canada and talked about ending child marriage.
On the second day of the assembly Moni was the only person to have asked a question to the former British Prime Minister David Cameron. ‘I asked David on his ideas of lessening gender biasness. Cameron stressed on leaders, teachers and parents working together on the issue and taking action,’ Moni says.
On the fourth day Moni addressed the speech to the president of General Assembly Mogens Lykketoft and discussed the problems of child marriage, teenage pregnancy leading to increased school dropouts and lack of health rights. She also talked about violence against children in Bangladesh highlighting the case of Rajon Murder in Sylhet.
Fortunately, Moni was the only girl of her family who wasn’t forced to be married before she grew up. Three of her sisters were school dropouts due to poverty and were married off before turning 18. Now her parents finally realise that a girl can make a change after seeing the accomplishment of their daughter.
NHK, a Japanese news TV channel already shot a 45 minute documentary film focusing on Moni’s work.
Moni affirms that she intends to continue her studies as long as she can and she wants to continue working for social causes.
‘If I don’t study well, no one will follow me. If I grow up with dignity and achieve a good position, younger girls would get inspiration. I ask every parent in this country to spend money for the education of their daughters instead of saving money for their marriages. Today parents may regret that an apparently good marriage proposal has slipped away, but in future when your daughter grows up and succeeds, marriage proposals would come at your door,’ Moni concludes.