A YouTube channel named AroundMeBD is engaged in highlighting its village in the world arena by distributing traditional rural cuisine to the villagers free of cost.
A teacher named Delwar Hossain has been able to establish such a precedent in the remote village of Mollapara of Shimulia union, which is under Khoksha upazila of Kushtia district.
He has been continuing his ceaseless efforts to highlight his village in the world arena through his YouTube channel, AroundMeBD. So far, subscribers to this channel are around 4.29 million. This village is becoming developed through the activities of this YouTube channel. The living standards of rural people have changed. Work opportunities for women, jobless, and aged people have been created in the village. Now, this village is widely recognized as “YouTube Village” instead of Mollapara of Shimulia.
In June 2016, Liton Ali and school teacher Delwar Hossain jointly started a YouTube channel named AroundMeBD. Now, this channel is so popular that its subscribers have increased to about 4.29 million.
In the beginning, all the rural cuisine, arranging a picnic with the children in a rural environment, and the fishing scene in the canal were captured, and the videos were shown on the AroundMeBD channel. These video clips were sent to Dhaka through a mobile phone memory card, where nephew Liton Ali uploaded them to the YouTube channel. This channel has become successful. Now, video of it is no longer captured by mobile phones. A camera and a cameraman have been assigned for this. The cooking video of the rural women is also shown on this channel.
They have more YouTube channels apart from AroundMeBD. Intending to create employment opportunities for the unemployed youths, they have created another channel called "Creative Voice," where jobless youths of that village work. They capture videos of various commodities made from bamboo and wood and upload them on their channel.
The downtrodden people of the village have aspirations but no sufficient buying capacity. Considering their limitations, they are conducting another channel named Fortunate Guest. Every day, some young people of the village visit the houses of the poor people as guests. They remain in close touch with him. They cook it for them to eat together after deciding what they want to eat and purchasing it from the market. Passing moments with that family were captured on video and uploaded to the YouTube channel Fortunate Guest.
The cuisine of three aged people is shown on a YouTube channel named "Village Grandpa's Cooking." Three people aged more than 70 years of age cook, and that cuisine is distributed among the autistic, sick, and helpless old people. After that, they capture videos from cooking to distributing and upload them on the channel.
Besides, they show how a woman from the village catches fish through another channel called ‘The Fishing Lady.’
"AroundMeBD," "Creative Boys Crafts," "Village Grandpa's Cooking," and "The Fishing Lady" channels are conducted by Liton Ali and school teacher Delwar Hossain. Liton resides in Dhaka city. Every channel's video is recorded and conducted by Delwar Hossain, a school teacher who lives in the village.
In an interview, Delwar Hossain told Banglanews24.com that four years back, his nephew Liton discussed with him in Dhaka the possibility of highlighting the village culture of culturally enriched Kushtia in the world arena through his YouTube channel. Later on, we thought we would do videos of cooking with rural people. That cooked food will be fed to the rural people. We started our activities in this way. We opened a YouTube channel named AroundMeBD and uploaded cooking videos there. After that, we did not look back. Now we have five YouTube channels.
He said one channel conducts one type of activity. All are rural-based. We have 45 paid employees who perform this work. Among them, 14 women are engaged in cooking, whose salary range is Tk 2500 to Tk 3000. We spend 8 lakh taka every month. At least we cook 20 days a month. Per day, cooking is arranged for a minimum of 400 rural people, after which rural people eat for free. All are arranged at our own expense. Depending on the variety, it costs Tk 30,000 to 40,000 per day. What we earn from the channel, we spend that money for the betterment of the rural people and to help sick and burnt-affected people.
He said, “In the beginning, many people used to look at this work with crooked eyes and make bad comments. But now the villagers inspire us. We all work together happily.”
Talking to the villagers, it is known that the village has been developed through these activities. In addition to the employment of about half a hundred people, the village people can eat good food every day.
Local dweller Chayen Ali told Banglanews24.com that when people from all over the world see the people of our village through YouTube, it feels very good. Every afternoon, a festive mood prevails here, which you will not find in any village.
Thanks
to the YouTube channel ‘AroundMeBD,’ the people of this village can eat their
full meal once a day. Happy are those people who go back to their destination
after eating all kinds of delicious food items.
