In Narsingdi, where finding blood in an emergency can become a race against time, Jahangir Alom began a mission more than two decades ago to help people in his own community. What started around 2000 as one young man’s response to seeing families struggle to find blood eventually grew into a wider effort . It brought voluntary donors and patients in urgent need together.
The story did not begin with a large institution or a substantial fund. It began with an ordinary newly graduated young mind , who could see a problem around him : people needing blood and families struggling to find it in time.
That concern eventually became more than a personal observation. It grew into an initiative that brought people together to donate blood and help patients in moments when time can matter as much as treatment itself.
As one of the founding members of মানববন্ধন সমাজ কল্যাণ সংস্থা, Jahangir Alom has been involved in community-based efforts aimed at helping people in need. Among the initiatives connected to the organization is a blood-donation campaign that seeks to connect donors with patients requiring blood, particularly in emergency situations.
But for him, the work appears to be about more than arranging blood donations. It is about creating a culture in which people recognize that a small act from one person can become a lifeline for another.
“I always refused to accept any wrong doing , and questioned every wrong situation . I always dream of helping people and this club was just the right place to start with. Initially we formed this club just to hang out and chat with friends but eventually the thought strikes up Why not help people while we are free? ” – Jahangir Alom
The campaign also reflects that community service does not necessarily require extraordinary resources. It requires people willing to notice a problem and take responsibility for doing something about it. He convinced around 150 donors just for the first phase of the campaign and eventually broke the record of that time by supplying 176 bags of blood to “Red Crescent “ in 2001.
For him , however , the most meaningful measure of the work may not be the number of campaigns held or the number of people involved. It is the individual moment when someone’s need meets another person’s willingness to help .
“One day , I was sitting at a regular hangout spot when I noticed a woman crying outside . I went to her and asked what had happened . She told me that her husband was sick and urgently needed blood . She had brought her husband with her because she wanted to show that she was genuinely in need of help and was not trying to deceive anyone .
Seeing the woman crying and her husband suffering really touched me . I felt deeply affected by what I was witnessing . At that very moment, I decided that whenever someone in my community needed blood , I would try to help them .
I did not want to do it for any particular hospital or organization like the Red Crescent . I wanted to help my own people . I wanted to make sure that people from my village and surrounding community would not have to struggle to find blood when their loved ones were in critical condition .
That moment was what inspired me to start helping people through blood donation .” Jahangir Alom shared .
That is perhaps what makes Alom’s story more than the story of a social organization. The organization provides the platform, but the story begins with the person who saw a need and decided that simply witnessing it was not enough.
His work has since brought others into that effort, turning an individual concern into a collective responsibility.
For Jahangir Alom, the journey is still ongoing. The systems may change, the people involved may grow in number, and the needs of the community may evolve. But the central idea remains simple: when someone needs help, someone should be willing to step forward.
About the Writer,
Asmita Ashraf Rupkatha is a student writer and aspiring journalist based in Bangladesh from Uttara University..
