Cultivating kindness as a currency

Md Arifur Rahman, along with his friends, has been involved in charitable work since 2009, which laid the groundwork for Bhalo Kajer Binimoye Ahar, last year.

"In one of Humayun Ahmed's television shows, the lead character, played by Zahid Hasan, made the decision to perform one good deed every day, which deeply resonated with me," says Arifur, Founder and Chief Volunteer of Bhalo Kajer Binimoye Ahar. During his university days, along with his friends, Arifur started to save BDT 10 every day, which would add up to BDT 300 from each of them at the end of a month. They divided the money and eventually put it towards medical treatment, food and academic lessons for underprivileged children. Since 2012, Arifur and his friends have spent every Eid with these kids. 

They founded the Facebook group Youth for Bangladesh in 2012. Since then, they have been providing food and education to underprivileged groups. "The children around the Kamalapur Railway Station are very prone to addiction and crimes since they have no one to guide them. As a result, we decided to launch a project through which these kids could get food in exchange for their good deeds," Arifur adds.

They started the project Bhalo Kajer Binimoye Ahar in December 2019, with the goal of serving 250 to 300 people every day. Now, it has evolved into Bhalo Kajer Hotel, a mobile restaurant located beside a footpath near the Kamalapur Railway Station. It provides at least one meal to underprivileged people daily – but the catch is that they get the food in exchange for their acts of kindness. Some of these people, especially kids, like to help elders around the streets, while others try to feed stray animals or take care of the dying plants on roadsides. Then, they line up at the footpath for the meals, provided by the volunteers.

The volunteers distribute the food packages systematically, after listing down the names, deeds and ages of these people. Each week, those who are behind the best three good deeds receive gifts from the Bhalo Kajer Hotel team.

Things have not been as steady for the team during the pandemic. In these difficult times, they met people who were surviving on just water for three consecutive days and people who had money but nowhere to buy food from as the shops were closed.

 4,000 volunteers work for Bhalo Kajer Hotel, following a rotation system. Around April, some of them camped out at a footpath in Badda for two and a half months to provide food to underprivileged groups, despite the health risks.

Moving forward, they plan to establish a full-fledged restaurant, where underprivileged people can come and get food, in exchange for their good deeds.