Owing to the coronavirus pandemic, a large number of young professionals and university students are spending their time at home. Many are using this time to look for opportunities.

To keep kids engaged during the coronavirus pandemic, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched an online book reading challenge for school children. Over 3000 children from across Bangladesh participated in this initiative through quizzes.

To ensure that farmers get fair prices for their products and consumers get quality products through fair deals amid the pandemic, paikarisale.com (http://www. paikarisale.com/), a sustainable, social welfare e-commerce platform, was launched recently.

Charity Right is an international social welfare organisation based in the United Kingdom. They are working closely with the UN and WHO to eradicate hunger and poverty worldwide. They are a prestigious member of the UNGC from Bangladesh, whose work is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals. The organisation operates their programmes in six different countries, including Greece, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Indonesia.

Mahhfuz Rahmaan’s book Gooltoo was one of the most popular books for children at the Ekushey Boi Mela 2020. Written and illustrated by the writer, the colourful book is a collection of seventeen short rhymes. Mahhfuz, who is currently working as a journalist with Prothom Alo, received the Panjeree Chhotakaku Shishu Sahittyo Puroshkar, recently.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the youth-led organisation, MASTUL Foundation, took an initiative to support middle-class families who feel embarrassed to ask for financial help.

Amid the coronavirus crisis, All For One Foundation distributed food among 4,000 lower-middle income families in different parts of Dhaka, and 21 other districts of the country, recently.

TransEnd is a social welfare organisation that empowers the transgender community through education, training, employment and entrepreneurship. Founded by Lamea Tanjin Tanha in 2019, the organisation primarily arranges social awareness campaigns and programmes, educating people on the gender spectrum.

Interactive Cares is a youth-based organisation founded as a cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) based platform. Their initiatives cater to the youth of the nation, contributing in e-learning, telemedicine, mental and physical health and legal services via real-time communication. The users can directly have voice and video calls, chats with the authorised industry experts, with automated prescription and virtual whiteboard facilities. The website allows its registered users to avail resources such as books, solutions, notes and creative illustrations among other things for free. "E-learning and telemedicine are few of the crucial demands during this pandemic. Interactive Cares will soon launch user-based cloud and artificial intelligence services in the USA. In the upcoming months, we will try to upgrade the services nationwide in full swing,” said Rare Al Samir, CEO.

Youth Op for 11/5/20

BRAC University Mongol Tori, a next-generation Mars rover, has ranked 3rd in University Rover Challenge (URC). The rover, which tends to walk alongside human explorers on the red planet someday, has the ability to retrieve objects, complete autonomous traversal missions, collect visual data, perform planetary analysis, detect the presence of life by conducting biosignature tests and help astronauts with equipment servicing.

To raise awareness on coronavirus, Lal Sabuj Society (LSS) has initiated multiple campaigns and projects all around the country.

To address the necessity and accessibility of verified information on COVID-19, four friends living in four different parts of Dhaka developed and launched ‘Corona in Bangladesh’, an online platform featuring a compilation of local and international from reliable resources, on March 21. Assembling updates through news reports and articles from World Health Organisation (WHO), Worldometer, Johns Hopkins University, IEDCR, and other such dependable news sources, this platform aims at raising awareness and reducing panic in Coronavirus pandemic.

On the occasion of Kobiguru Rabindranath Tagore’s 159th birth anniversary, let us take a look at some of his short stories, translated to English, that you can enjoy, as you self-isolate at this time.

CoronaCast, a Facebook-based online platform initiated by five Bangladeshi students from the University of Oxford, shares just the right information on the novel coronavirus via LIVE sessions, every day. Initially, the team wanted to start a discussion based on valid and updated research, which is important for COVID-19, as it is termed to be a novel virus, and research on it is still on at the preliminary level.

The COVID-19 crisis has crippled entire systems, including the RMG and agriculture sectors. It appears that food safety will be a major challenge in the country, after the pandemic. In order to overcome this challenge, Alok Chandra Das, founder of Anushilon Mojar School, has taken an initiative to distribute free vegetable seeds and pesticides among the marginal farmers in his area, under the project, Courtyard Agriculture.

As the Coronavirus pandemic continues, offices have switched to work-from-home and schools have moved to online classes. Economies around the world are coming to a standstill while numerous industries are falling apart, and the number of deaths continues to rise. In such circumstances, books can create a wonderful distraction to us. To enhance the impact of technology and books in our lives, International School Dhaka (ISD) organised Virtual Book Week for the Middle-Year Programme (MYP) students (Grade 6-10).

While the whole world is focused on the rapidly spreading coronavirus right now, there are a few other constant diseases we must not forget about. No matter how insignificant they may seem at the moment in comparison to the current pandemic, they are just as deserving of our attention. For some it is high blood pressure, while for others, it is diabetes. Then, there are the silent battles – depression and anxiety, to name a few.

Youth Op for this week

To help the underprivileged communities, AMAL Foundation, has been providing food and basic healthcare since the country went into isolation through their initiative ‘Rukhbo Corona’. It is a social organisation working to stop child marriage and domestic violence alongside providing free healthcare facilities in rural regions, founded by Esrat Karim.