Introduction

Ahmed Imtiaz Jami is the Founder and President of OBHIZATRIK Foundation, which he built from a single act of help in 2010 into a government-registered organisation working across Bangladesh through more than 3,500 volunteers, with the economic empowerment of women and girls at the core of its work. He also founded OBHIZATRIK International in Portugal, giving the organisation an Asia–Europe footprint for collaboration and resource mobilisation. He sets organisational strategy, designs and monitors every programme, allocates budgets, and represents the Foundation in partnerships, public dialogue and donor engagement.

His work spans women’s economic empowerment and gender mainstreaming, sustainable livelihoods and poverty reduction, free education, girls’ protection and rights, and disaster and humanitarian relief. He has led zakat-funded self-employment programmes – including SHOKKHOM, the SHOKKHOM Model Village and Project Shakti – supporting more than 3,200 families, with women making up over half of all beneficiaries, and directed a nationwide COVID-19 relief effort alongside recurring flood and disaster response operations.

Recognition

Jami is a Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia honoree and a recipient of the ICESCO Prize for Literacy of Girls and Women (2023). His honours also include Best NGO – SDG 11 (Gold) at the Global Sustainability Awards in Delhi (2025), the Community Leader Award from Community Business, Hong Kong (2024), the ILA 30 Under 30 (2023) and Young Humanitarian of the Year (2021), reflecting his impact on marginalised communities in Bangladesh and beyond.

Khadiza Tul Kubra Sarah is Director (Operations) at OBHIZATRIK Foundation, where she has spent over seven years leading programme planning, cross-team coordination and stakeholder liaison. She works with the executive team on long-term organisational strategy, manages the planning and execution of projects to meet objectives and deadlines, negotiates supplier contracts on cost and quality, and acts as the link between the creative and programme teams and the communities they serve. She previously served as Head of the Education Program (2018–2020), developing curricula with educators and community partners and evaluating programme outcomes. She holds a B.Arch from the Military Institute of Science & Technology and an M.Sc in Architecture from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET).

Abu Saleh Mohammad Musa is a monitoring and evaluation specialist with over two decades of experience designing and leading quantitative and qualitative research for donor-funded development programmes, including baseline, mid-term and endline evaluations against Performance Measurement Frameworks for multi-country projects. Since 2012 he has been Managing Director of Innovative Development Practitioners and Thinkers (INDEPTH) Limited, a development-research and M&E practice, and he serves as Regional Coordinator – Asia for the Fair Wage Network, leading surveys for global brands such as H&M, Puma, Decathlon, IKEA and Marks & Spencer. His consulting work for Plan Canada, WaterAid and others spans maternal and neonatal health, WASH and livelihoods evaluations across Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Mali, Haiti and beyond. He is an expert in SPSS and KoboToolbox for survey design and data processing.