Abed conferred knighthood

Brac founder and chairperson Fazle Hasan Abed was knighted on Tuesday in a special ceremony at Buckingham Palace in London for his contribution in tackling poverty and empowering poor.
The investiture ceremony was held by Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales. Prince Charles represented Queen Elizabeth II in the ceremony.
While conferring the knighthood to Abed, Prince Charles recalled his visit to Brac in Bangladesh and thanked him for his long service in reducing poverty.
Leaders from around the world have congratulated Abed on his Knighthood.
Abed is the first person of Bangladesh origin honoured with a Knighthood by the British Crown since 1947. Abed’s wife, Sarwat Abed, and daughter and son, Tamara and Shameran, were present at the ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
Abed received knighthood for his work spanning four decades in education, health, human rights and social development and for bringing financial services to the doorstep of millions of the poor in an effort to eradicate poverty in Bangladesh and countries in Asia and Africa.
Abed is the second person in his family to be honoured with a knighthood. His grand uncle, Justice Nawab Syed Shamsul Huda, was knighted by the British Crown in 1913.
Fazle Hasan Abed was born in 1936 in Baniachong of Habiganj district. After matriculation from Pabna Zilla School and higher secondary education from Dhaka College, he attended Glasgow University to study Naval Architecture.
On returning home, he joined Shell Oil Company. While in Shell, the devastating cyclone of 1970 hit the coastal regions of Bangladesh, killing 300,000 people, which had a profound effect on Abed.
When independence war started, circumstances forced Abed to leave the country. He found refuge in England, where he set up Action Bangladesh to lobby for his country’s independence with the governments of Europe.
When the war ended in December 1971, Abed returned to Bangladesh and decided to use the funds he had generated from selling his flat in London to initiate his own.
He selected the remote region of Sulla in northeastern Bangladesh to start his work. This work led him and his organisation, Brac.
In 2002, Brac went international by taking its range of development interventions to Afghanistan. Since then, Brac has expanded to a total of eight countries across Asia and Africa.
Its work has been recognised internationally through awards such as the $1.5 million Conrad N Hilton Humanitarian Prize in 2008 as well as the Swadhinata Puroshkar in 2007.
For his contribution to society, Abed received Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership in 1980, the Unicef Maurice Pate Award in 1992, the Olof Palme Prize in 2001, the UNDP Mahbub ul Haq Award for Outstanding Contribution in Human Development in 2004 and the Inaugural Clinton Global Citizen Award in 2007.

Courtesy of The Daily Star