Karen Nair Shares Expertise and Empowers Women in Bangladesh

Karen Nair travelled to Bangladesh during Reading Week, where she presented at an International Conference on Education and Development hosted by Uttar Bangla College (UBC).

Doctor Mozammel Huq founded UBC over twenty-five years ago in his home village of Kakina. The three-day conference focused on IT Advancements in Education, and Karen spoke about Humber's postgraduate programs, the success of program graduates in the employment market, and tools used to develop the computer literacy skills that Canadian employers demand.

On her final day at UBC, Karen conducted a lesson on PowerPoint in a computer lab with a dozen students. As a guest of Doctor Huq and a visiting Canadian, Karen also spoke to two-hundred students and staff at Pirgachha Women’s College. These students are contributing to closing the gender gap in post-secondary education in Bangladesh.

Karen also visited the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB) where she met with fifteen women who participated in the ten-month leadership training program known as the World Academy for the Future of Women. These women became civil engineers, electrical engineers, teachers, and administrators. They shared inspiring stories of how they were empowering their families, colleagues, and communities. These women, too, are instrumental in shaping the future of women in Bangladesh.

Karen and her friend Irene Graham from Glasgow toured the campus of Bangladesh Open University (BOU) and learned that it reaches over one hundred thousand students across Bangladesh with distance learning programs through fifty regional centres. BOU is modelled after the UK Open University and offers educational opportunities to students at the secondary and post-secondary levels who would not have access otherwise due to geographical barriers.

Karen represented Humber College well at the conference and during her visits to other institutions. She has been invited back and looks forward to returning next year.

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