grantees » Helena Khatun

This grantee is still in the process of their leadership development with the JWH initiative. 

Helena started her involvement with environmental advocacy in her work with AOSED, An Organization for Socio-Economic Development. AOSED is a non-profit, non-government development organization that works towards integrated water resource management, sustainable water and sanitation projects, agriculture and food security and climate change issues. This organization is working in southwest coastal region of Bangladesh, where Helena’s main interests lie on the effects that environmental degradation has on underprivileged societal sections, focusing specifically on women. Helena has had much success in her work with conducting teachers’ training, school campaigns, and educational competitions regarding sustainability in the environment. She continues to seek out projects through which she can make meaningful changes in the environmental sector, starting at the grassroots level.

Helena wants to user her JWH Initiative grant to enroll in a master’s program for Development Studies at Khulna University in Bangladesh, in order to gain more theoretical knowledge on sustainable international development and discover how leadership plays a role in this sector. She hopes to conduct a research study through her university work addressing the “role of women in agricultural development in the southwest coastal region of Bangladesh”. Helena will also take English language courses, so that she can better communicate globally and “become representative of deprived women of the region in the international arena”.