Sharmin Subrina

Director Program, Association for Community Development (ACD)
Bangladesh
Photo of Sharmin Subrina
The program was an opportunity to connect with other participants from 11 countries who shared their human rights country situation and organizational work.

“DTP helped me to gain good practices and professional approaches which I can replicate in my work in Bangladesh for children and women, including victims of trafficking. The program was also an opportunity to connect with other participants from 11 countries who shared their human rights country situation and organizational work. It is needed to create an atmosphere for building capacity and confidence among the downtrodden and disenfranchised segments of populations, in particular, to be able to preserve their basic human rights and demand good governance and accountability.”

Sharmin Subrina participated in the 2023 DTP Asian Alumni Workshop, a two-day workshop in Bangkok, Thailand along with other Asian-based alumni. She also participated in the 29th Annual Human Rights and Peoples’ Diplomacy Training Program, in DTP’s flagship two-week intensive education and training program specially designed on human rights and which provides a space to learn about the Timorese struggle for self-determination and human rights. As part of this program, Subrina felt greatly honored to attend the official ceremony for the 20th Anniversary Celebration on August 30, 2019 of the Referendum, when, with great courage, the Timorese people voted for their independence.

Subrina has been working with the Association for Community Development (ACD) since 2005 and serves in the senior management team. ACD’s goal is to achieve the rights of people, especially the disadvantaged and vulnerable women, adolescents and children at grassroots levels through improving their socio-economic, political and cultural status, ensuring social justice and good governance. Being the pioneer organisation working on counter-trafficking initiatives in the northern part of Bangladesh, ACD received the Anti-Slavery International Award in 2001 for protecting women and children from bonded slave or slavery like practices; and the UN-HABITAT Regional Office for Asia and Pacific Award 2007 on ‘Gender and Rights-Responsive Sustainable Cities in Asia and the Pacific’.

ACD brings together community members of different ethnicities and class, to address human rights violations and also to tackle the underlying causes of these violations. ACD’s village development committees aim to strengthen local justice system through enhancing capacity of village arbitration committees, Violence Protection Committee and People’s Organizations which improve access to justice for disadvantaged and marginalised groups and enhance their human rights process and practices in the rural areas.

Sharmin is one of the focal points of ECPAT International Child and Youth Advisory Committee (EICYAC). She is strongly involved in community-based interventions in child protection, women’s participation, combating sexual gender-based violence by engaging men and boys and dealing with gender issues and positive forms of masculinities. Sharmin is responsible for coordinating and effectively implementing numerous projects including building of resilience for returning migrants through economic reintegration and community empowerment; the institutionalised implementation of tobacco control law at local administration, local government and ending / preventing the sexual exploitation of children online and in travel and tourism.

The DTP course strengthened Subrina’s conviction that in the end, strong collaborative effort within and across borders and causes can ensure human rights in the world.

October 2019

Programs and Events