For class III student Mumtazah Meem, Friday was not like any other day.
All her knowledge about the Liberation War had so far been gathered from discussions, talk-shows, dramas and cinemas; but she had always found the sources complex and difficult for children to understand.
Friday, for the first time, she discovered a newfound feeling for the Liberation War when she prepared a wall magazine on war heroes.
“To prepare this, I read about war heroes and their lives touched me a lot. Now I can feel their struggles,” Mumtazah, a student of Viqarunnisa Noon School and College, told this correspondent while explaining her wall magazine.
Like Mumtazah, some 3,000 students from 15 city schools learned the history of the Liberation War in a lively way, at a programme organised by “71 Obinashi Sotta”, a club from Viqarunnisa Noon School and College - working to make school students learn the history of the Liberation War.
The event, taking place at the Viqarunisa Noon School and College from 9am to 4:30pm Friday, included quiz competition, wall magazine competition, and documentary screening.
Throughout the program, the participating students remained enthusiastic about their own individual efforts to showcase the Liberation War history.
“This is a wonderful way to learn history of the Liberation War. I had not learnt history of the war earlier, which I learned here today,” Jannatul Ferdous, a class IV student of Viqarunnisa Noon School and College said.
Nabila Tabassum Chowdhury, president of the “71 Obinashi Sotta” club, said such programmes have been taking place since 2008, but this was the first time other schools attended.
The purpose of arranging such programmes was to let school students know about the Liberation War and to ensure they do not get any distorted history, she said.
A discussion was held in the final session of the program, attended by author Md Zafar Iqbal, freedom fighter and cultural activist Nasiruddin Yousuff Bachchu, cultural personality Hasan Imam, freedom fighter Shirin Banu Mitil, freedom fighter Lt. Col. (retd) Sajjad Zahir and others. The speakers shared their Liberation War experiences with the students.
Zafar Iqbal said the new generation can take the country forward if they love the country. “To love the country, you have to know the history of Liberation War,” he told the students.
Nasiruddin Yousuff said the new generation should work to create a non-communal, democratic and war-criminal-free Bangladesh, as many lives were sacrificed to achieve the country’s independence.
Shirin Banu Mitil said that without eliminating rajakars and war criminals, Liberation War will not be completed and the new generation will have to work to complete the “incomplete war”.
Along with the host school, students from Ideal School and College, Mogbazar Girls’ School, Siddheshwari School, Agrani School, Udayan School, BAF Shahin School, Residential Model School and some other schools also attended the programme.
