The month of Ramadan comes with mercy, Forgiveness and safety from the hell to the human beings by the almighty Allah. This month teaches us humanity, brotherhood and harmony. Every year in this month of holy Ramadan OSM Community Bangladesh arrange a Iftar Party for a get together of the community volunteers.

Iftar is the evening meal with which Muslims break their fast at the sunset and is one of the religious observance of the month of holy Ramadan. Iftar is often celebrated as a community, with people gathering together to break their fast.

After the formation of our OpenStreetMap Community in 2011, now a days it is our community’s tradition to hold an iftar celebration party every year attended by all community volunteers and community people of the community.

On 29th May 2019, Wednesday, the 23rd day of holy Ramadan, we the OSM community volunteers attended in an iftar party at Shyamoli, Dhaka in the office of Bangladesh Open Innovation Lab (BOIL). The office was decorated beautifully for the community people and the location was at the middle point for the community people.

At around 5 o’clock the community people started coming to the venue and before sunset all the community people joined together to celebrate their iftar observance. The members and volunteers of OpenstreetMap Bangladesh Foundation (OSMBDF), Bangladesh Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Operational Team (BHOOT), YouthMappers Dhaka College as well as the other community groups attended in this occasion.

Homemade and hygienic foods, fruits and juice were served at the iftar for the fasting persons. After having iftar and saying prayer a discussion program was held. During this session Ahsanul Haque, the reformer and pioneer of OpenStreetMap Bangladesh and GIS and Data Management Consultant of World Bank, Tasauf A Baki Billah (Ribin), director of OSMBDF, Atikuzzaman Limon, Arif Hossain of OSMBDF, Shafiq sir as well as other respective persons were present in the party.

In the program various optimistic matters were discussed like how to grow new courses on GIS and open map data to enlarge OpenStreetMap as well as the community. In the session the community people were very excited hearing that around the top 30 mappers in the 1st 50 in MissingMaps leaderboard are from OSM Bangladesh community.

In this discussion the past and present status of OpenStreetMap Bangladesh and the future activities of the community were discussed. The community members were known about the current ongoing and past GIS related projects of OpenStreetMap Bangladesh community. In this program the community people were known various information about State of the Map Germany and State of the Map Africa 2019.

State of the Map Asia, Bangladesh 2019, was one of the main attraction of this program. Various steps, rules regulation, venue, duration and other important matters were discussed in this iftar party. The community people were very excited hearing the news of State of the Map Asia, Bangladesh. They took a determination to undertake the responsibility of the event.

Finally at the end of the programme all the community people of OpenStreetMap Bangladesh Community joined in a photo session programme. And closed the programme wishing a safe journey as well as wishing a fabulous Eid observance.

Accelerating Sanitation and Water for All (ASWA II) project aims to achieve sustained access to basic sanitation and safe water supplies, as well as the long-term adoption of hygiene practices, across 10 focus countries. ASWA II builds upon the momentum achieved through ASWA I.

The project aims to improve the health, nutrition and wellbeing of the vulnerable population in 14 rural districts especially women and girls through sustained use of safe water supplies, sanitation service and sustained adoption of hygiene practices.

To achieve this humanitarian goal, OpenSteetMap Bangladesh Foundation (OSMBDF) is collaborating in creating GIS based WASH Inventory by facilitating training on data collection process using aswa ii apk.

On 7th May 2019, a sunny Tuesday of Summer we the three me along with Atikur Rahman and Md. Samsul Arafin of OpenStreetMap Bangladesh Foundation (OSMBDF) team had given a hands on training on ASWA ii apk in the orientation on Wash Inventory, implemented by UNICEF-NGO Forum, at the Hall Room of Sadarpur union, Faridpur . It was one of my memorable days, the day was the very first day of the month of Holy Ramadan.

We reached the training spot after a sweet of 36 km long journey by Mahindra auto rickshaw enjoying the beauty of nature and the scenery of Faridpur at 11:00 O’clock at Bhashanchar Union Parishad. A group of young people were waiting for our arrival.

We started our training with the UNICEF WASH officer, NGO Forum representatives, field supervisors as well as the volunteers, who are the warriors of field operation of ASWA ii project. Our Atik Vai lead the training and me as well as Md. Samsul Arafin assist him in the Session. The training was about what is ASWA ii apk, how it works, how to create forms, how to fill, how to synchronize data, adding GPS location, how to take image, the credential of the form, how to upload and synchronize and about the update about the apk.

The participants were very decent and cooperative by listening, asking logical questions as well as practising a lot in indoor and outdoor. We showed a demo on the how data will be stored in the server by showing their demo data in the server to enlighten them in digital survey.

During this session some difficulties we had to face like internet connectivity issues, electricity issue, poor technology knowhow of both volunteers and supervisors, fresh new volunteers, unsupported devices were the most notable of them.

Despite of these issues we successfully trained both the participants, supervisors and the organizers by a 3.5 hours long session. After the Session the WASH Officer of UNICEF and the representative of NGO Forum expressed their satisfaction about the session.
Finally I want to thank OpenstreetMap Bangladesh Foundation (OSMBDF) for giving me such an opportunity to increase my knowledge and ability for my better future .