I am writing to share my personal experience to tell my labmates, friends, supervisors about the power of writing words. I am humble guy. English is a foreign language in my country, Bangladesh. However, one wonderful experience happened to me and so, I am sharing. It was in 2012. The World Innovative Summit for Education (WISE) invited application worldwide for attending its conference in November 2012. The application needed to provide few personal information such as name, address, designation, work address, phone, email, passport/travel document etc. The main challenge was to describe my profile in 25 (twenty five) words. It might be the main point that I caught. Describing myself in 25 words was the main focus of the application. Only 25 words were for winning an award though it was not written anywhere in their application invitation page. Another point, I did not need a CV. That time in 2012, I was working additionally for the skill development research project for disadvantaged girls and women in Bangladesh. This is what I mentioned in simpler words with an expectation from my efforts for the project in 25 words. That brought my sponsorship or award.
You know what was the value of the sponsorship that included the registration fee for WISE summit, return economy air-travel (Dhaka-Doha), accommodation for three days in five star hotel in Doha and free local transportation with Mercedes Benz/BMW, and all day snacks, lunch and one gala dinner hosted by the Queen, Qatar. That was huge. I was just an attendee. It was a conference of education administrators such as presidents/vice chancellors, rectors, education ministers, first lady, ex-prime minister, and world renown educators, who excelled them in their own areas.
Also there were students selected from all over the world. WISE brought the best speakers from the North and from the South. I was a tiny assistant director. However, I attended in group discussions, training sessions, tried to develop a network. Three days of exposure at WISE, Doha remained a life-time experience.
This is not the only place I got this privileged because of writing. I attended 30 days training under the scholarship of JICA in Colombo, University of Colombo in 2007, attended three PCF (Pan Commonwealth Forum) in 2008 in London, Abuja in 2013, Edinburgh in 2019. These sponsorship or awards were purely for writing. For those awards, sometimes I needed to write an abstract, sometimes a full paper, sometimes an evaluation report.
During my MA in English at the University of Lethbridge, I received few awards and fellowship in 2021 and 2022 amounting to $17,000.00 because of writing. Here I need referee letters. I must acknowledge my supervisor, my co-supervisor and other referees for their wonderful words. Thus, I wish to tell you that your words are your power.
I think we should never lose our heart and I believe you have the power because you have the writing skill. In case, this time your are unsuccessful, the next time your success is waiting.
