New City College students praised for charity mission at House of Lords reception

Four amazing New City College students received high praise during a House of Lords reception for their part in a charity mission to bring clean water, provisions and humanity to villagers living in poverty in Bangladesh.

The Tower Hamlets campus students – Sufian Kamali, who is President of the Students’ Union, along with Oly Gofur Begum, Marzan Alom and Jumel Miah, joined a group of volunteers from the local branch of the charity Splash and the Human Relief Foundation for the two-week project earlier this year.

Last week the students and representatives from the charity were invited to a celebration at the House of Lords by Lord Cashman of Limehouse (pictured with them) and he also invited Baroness Chakrabarti and Principal of New City College, Alison Arnaud, to join the gathering.

In his speech, Lord Cashman commended all those involved but singled out the work of the NCC learners in helping to change the lives of the villagers for many years to come. He said: “You may never know the full impact of what you did but I promise you, in years to come, they will be talking about the time the boys came and played football with them, dug wells and handed out food.”

Alison Arnaud said: “This is a moment of enormous pride for the college and the wider community. Thanks to the work of these combined groups, a total of 16 fresh water wells were created in mountainous regions without any other access to safe drinking water.

“The teams visited orphanages and took the young people on a momentous day out to the beach, playing games with them and giving them sweet treats. They also supplied provisions to areas with little access to fresh food, they set up laptops for education and gifted shawls and other items to widows – to name just a few acts of kindness.

“Central to this initiative was the work of our four own amazing students.

“I cannot express how moving the accounts of the trip were, with Sufian able to speak for all four when he explained how they learned to appreciate what they have through seeing the joy of others who have very little. As one of the organisers put it – they went out as boys but have come back as men.

“The whole event left me close to tears and bursting with pride. Congratulations to everyone involved. I know as a college we will want to support this work in the future as it provides such valuable life lessons for our learners.”

Student Sufian said: “It was a life-changing experience and one I would definitely do again. We could see how just having access to fresh water will transform the people’s daily lives. We were all humbled and grateful for the things we take for granted in the UK, like running water, heat, food and shelter.”