Asian Fortune Your source for all things Asian American
By Jenny Chen
The summer before 9th grade, Celia Islam went back to visit her grandparents in Bangladesh, like she always did. Except that this time, the town she was visiting, Sirajgang, had just been ravaged by an awful flood: houses were destroyed, schools were demolished, and children were displaced.
“It looked completely different,” Islam said.
Islam, now a graduating senior at George C. Marshall High School, decided to raise money for the families who had been affected by the flood. She said that it started out just as a bake sale with her friends, which raised a couple hundred dollars. But after the bake sale was over, Islam was still not satisfied. “I just felt like there was more to be done…a couple hundred dollars was not enough to rebuild someone’s life,” she said.
That’s when Islam created the Children’s Trust Fund, a nonprofit organization led by students in 15 high schools across the country. The Fund, which incorporated as a 501c(3) in 2011, raises money to help empower families in Bangladesh with rickshaws and farm animals. These items are crucial to helping families become self-sustaining, said Islam, and thus help children who are malnourished and suffering from chronic diseases.
Islam was one of 42 students that received the McDonald’s Educates Scholarship this year to go towards her college education at George Washington University starting next year. Islam said that she plans to join the seven year BA/MD program there, which will allow her to be a pediatric nurse.
“It has a lot to do with CT Fund,” Islam said. “One of the main issues…[for the children in Bangladesh] is getting proper health care,” she said.
