[WSIS CS-Plenary] FW: Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha (SSS) Bangladesh, Didn’t able to show minimum level of work, Now Ti

[Hamidur Rahman]

Bangladesh ICT Journalist Forum(BIJF) Protests The Daily Star News regarding Shidhulai Swanirva Sangstha(SSS) So-called  “School on the Water”

The cover story “School on the Water” of the weekend magazine of The Daily Star shocked the member journalists of Bangladesh ICT Journalists Forum (BIJF). IT journalists from almost every daily Bangla and English newspapers, IT magazines and agency set up BIJF in 2002.Debates and discussions of several yahoo-based IT groups regarding Shidhulai Swanirva Sangstha inspired BIJF to send a six-member team to visit the project sites of the NGO in three groups.BIJF investigation found the NGO had highly exaggerated its activities. It did nothing compared to its superficial claims. People of the NGO project area of Chalanbeel do not know much about its functions. Details are narrated exclusively in the BIJF report. News and columns on the basis of the report were published in some newspapers like Ittefaq, Janakantha, Monthly Computer Jagat, etc and also posted on the Internet. Moreover, on the very day of the SWM's cover story (August 17, 2007), the Independent published a feature article about the malpractice of this NGO.So far Shidhulai has not taken any initiative to protest the BIJF report. They are completely silent about the report, but they are busy in misleading a few newsmen to write and telecast reports on them.Once the NGO claimed to the members of the BIJF that they had 88 boats. But according to the SWM cover story they have 35 boats. It is a fact however, that BIJF's investigation found only four boats.The members of BIJF spoke to the high officials of the NGO and its executive director. They promised to show BIJF members the 88 boats within a week but failed. The executive director of the NGO refuses to receive calls from IT journalists any more.A team of BIJF visited one of the project areas of the NGO called Chicola. The team interviewed 50 people, besides one schoolteacher, who have never heard about the NGO. According to the NGO's claim they have 180 regular staff and 2000 workers, but the IT journalists only saw 9 staff members. The Dhaka office of the UNDP said that they selected him for the award on the basis of a few newspaper reports. How can the UNDP rely on only a few newspaper reports for awarding a person?IT journalists of BIJF believe that the NGO somehow misled the staff writer and the photographer of The Daily Star. For the sake of honesty in journalism, the leading English newspaper needs to reinvestigate every nook and cranny of the NGO.M.A. Haque AnuPresidentBIJF
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