A community choosing to build the future it wants.
The Debidwar Initiative is a project of the HRA Foundation. Through video and audio podcasts, articles and proposals, we ask hard questions about leadership, mosques, education and economy — and invite our community to answer them, together.
Why Debidwar
Because real change happens in real places. Debidwar is the place we know — and the case study that any other community can learn from.
Why now
Because the cost of waiting is paid by the next generation. We owe them a serious conversation, today.
Why together
No initiative survives a single voice. The mosque networks, leaders and ordinary people of Debidwar are the project.
"My roots, and my love, remain with my motherland."
Assalamu Alaikum. I am Arosh Ali, a senior British Bangladeshi citizen and the Coordinator of the HRA Foundation. Although I have spent most of my life abroad, my heart and my roots remain firmly tied to the soil of my motherland.
I established the HRA Foundation in 2008, and since then we have been serving our community through a range of capacity building projects. One of the achievements I am most grateful for is helping establish a branch of Gonoshasthaya Kendra in Nowder, Bishwanath, Sylhet-3100 — bringing accessible healthcare closer to the people who need it most.
My greatest inspirations come from the works of Dr. Zafrullah Chowdhury and Professor Muhammad Yunus. I deeply admire and acknowledge that the models and concepts they built are far more valuable than the individuals themselves. If we truly want to develop our nation from the roots, we must follow and build upon those models — together.
The HRA Foundation
The HRA Foundation is a not-for-profit collective with roots in Bishwanath, Sylhet and Manchester, United Kingdom. We work on long-term, community-led projects that take ideas from conversation to action.