Surmi Chakma, a 2nd-year student at Dhaka University from the Chakma community in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), is dedicated to making education accessible to her community. She started her action project in April 2023, inspired by her participation in the DFTP Summer course 2023, and it is still ongoing.
The CHT region is home to over 45 ethnic communities, each with its own mother language. However, these communities have limited access to textbooks in their native languages, and the translated Bangla textbooks in Chakma are also insufficient. This language barrier hinders the Chakma community’s right to education and limits their educational opportunities.
To address this issue, Surmi’s project focused on raising awareness and advocating for educational materials in the Chakma language. She created 36 educational videos in Chakma, which were widely shared online and garnered 50,000 views. Additionally, she engaged in advocacy efforts with government officials and stakeholders and used flyers and posters on social media to raise awareness about the language barrier in education.
Surmi’s project has been a significant success. The educational videos received a large number of views, indicating a strong interest and need for such materials within the community. Her advocacy efforts brought attention to the issue among government officials and policymakers, raising the profile of the language barrier problem.
The impact of Surmi’s work extends beyond the immediate reach of the videos. By raising awareness and advocating for the inclusion of Chakma language texts in educational materials, she has taken important steps toward promoting linguistic diversity and empowering her community. This project has not only improved access to education for the Chakma community but also inspired similar initiatives to support other indigenous communities in the CHT.