Today at Sreepur Village, Bangladesh, our mothers and their children along with members of staff celebrated International Mother Language Day, honouring the language movement martyrs.
The event, beginning at 6.30am this morning, took place at the Shaheed Minar monument inside the village grounds where single mothers, their children and staff placed wreaths to commemorate the language movement martyrs.
Today is all about expressing gratitude and respect to the brave individuals who sacrificed their lives during the language movement in Bangladesh. The language movement was a movement to recognise the Bengali language as the official language of East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh. The movement ultimately led to the recognition of Bengali as an official language of Pakistan.
Today's celebrations also included speeches which highlighted the significance of the day and the importance of preserving and promoting all languages.
We share with you a story of Sharifa, a mother who has had her fair share of struggles in life and who recently, along with her family, visited Sreepur to share with us her successes in life.
The sudden death of Sharifa's husband in late 2004 left her as the sole provider for her four children. With no one to turn to for help, Sharifa felt lonely, scared and desperate for her family's future survival.
It was a bright and sunny day on the 12th of March when Sreepur Village hosted day one of the girls' cricket tournament.