10th anniversary celebration – Juldia Marine Academy Alumni Association (JMAAA) – Dhaka

December 22, 2105 Tuesday

A grand gathering cum meeting was held in Dhaka specifically to hear out the predicament of the junior batches and celebrate 10^th anniversary of the founding of JMAAA. Over 200 alumni attended. It was organized strictly for the alumni and no family members or friends were invited. We also had pre-Marine Academy mariners and several ex-commandants were in our midst. A good number of the attendees were from the recent batches; 45 through 49^th.

Besides celebrating the 10^th year founding of JMAAA, the main focus of the gathering was to discuss the predicament of the fresh passed out cadets who have not found any employment and are frustrated with their career. Surprisingly many senior alumni were not aware of the situation of the freshly passed out cadets and were stunned at the depth of the problem. The very purpose of the meeting was to make all alumni aware of the current challenges apart from sharing pleasantries amongst batch mates and friends.

Ghulam Suhrawardi (6N) introduced Mr. Ashraf Ibn Noor (5^th Engineering), the current nominated President of JMAAA Bangladesh and Mr. Monirul Islam (4^th batch Engineering), President of JMAAA – the Americas. It is interesting to note that, JMAAA has been processed as a non-profit organization under the Bangladesh and USA laws. We seek support of all alumni to bolster all the JMAAA work in progress. The theme of the meeting was to discuss the future of the Bangladesh Marine Academy and the predicament of the freshly passed out alumni.

Captain Mohammed Shafi and Mr. Zahedur Rahman (engineer and former LR Surveyor and country representative) brought much sought inspiration for the junior alumni. They reminisced about their training in the British merchant vessels to become one of the first batches of mariners from Bangladesh. Another pioneer mariner, Captain QBM Rahman was unable to attend the gathering on account of serious respiratory issues. He was sorry that he could not attend.

BMA Commandant Mr. Sajid Hossain also echoed the present situation and advised the younger alumni to have patience and wait for opportunity. These unemployed cadets pursued the Commandant after his speech and brought up their points.

One issue was brought up about 4 mariners who have been sentenced to prison terms in Nigeria. Various senior cadets and pioneer mariners showed their concerns. Captain Mohiuddin Kadir (18^th N), a maritime lawyers came forward to volunteer his time into the process of liberating them from Nigeria. Future cadets were cautioned against accepting jobs via questionable manning agents who are preying on aspiring mariners for money. Controlling these manning agents is extremely important and government should take appropriate actions. Captain Imam Anwar Hossain (6N) promised to help monetarily towards the release of these mariners.

All the batches; first to forty ninth batch alumni were introduced batch by batch by a show of the hands. All batches were represented in this gathering and dinner and they spoke about themselves.

Most interesting feature of the dinner was that, many alumni met each other after several decades. It gave them an opportunity of mingle amongst each other to talk about their past, present and also about the prospective activities in future. The lively discussions and interactions were high quality as no spouses of family were present.

Hereunder present you with a representative sampling of photos: