Uphar Bangladesh Mela 2002: Reem Choudhury in classical dance

Ambassador of Bangladesh

We have presented a Crest to our honorable Bangladesh Ambassador Mr.. Syed Hasan Ahmad in welcoming him as a new addition to our community. He also speak before the crowd. Ms. Barbara Favola of Arlington County Board address to the audience and we gave her a gift from Bangladesh community with a poster of Bangladeshi Flag with national anthem both in Bengali and English.

Recognition of community personalities for their good work presented by Hassan Chowdhury

President of BCCDI Mr. Hassan Chowdhury and Director- Cultural Affairs Ms. Roquia Haider gave the 1000 plus audience a yearly activity report of BCCDI and also gave out the information on their organization's achievement's. They also highlighted the activities currently BCCDI is doing for the community and various other multicultural projects they are planning for rest of the year.

Ms. Fahmida Amin, famous writer from Bangladesh also addressed the audience and express her joy with lots of emotion being part of a nice festival.

Dance by Puspanjali

Our guest artists Mr. Kaderi Kibriya, Subhashish Mukherjee, Mr. Brian Q. Silver, Debu Nayak, Dance group Pushpanjali and our local artists ( Antora Rahman, Shafia Alam, Merina Rahman, Reem Choudhury, Zihan Habib) have made the program a successful entertaining event for the audience.

Kaderi Kibria was performing one of his best that night. He songs includes Tagore songs and Purano Diner Gan. For good one hour audience was listening to this great singer with great emotion. Subashish Mukherjee of India was another attraction of the night. Student of Pundit Ajay Chakrobarti, Subashish was excellent on singing Classic Nazrul songs, Old songs, Purana Dinar Gan and few classical.

Subashish Mukharjee and Debu Nayak

Outside the auditorium Clown (Cecil the Clown), Magician Mr. Andrew Baorch , Cartoon Character Mcgraff, Big Bird and different stalls arranged by different vendors and at auditorium Video Clips of famous Bengali movie songs on big screen have created a typical Mela image for children as well as for the adults.

Our thanks to Arlington County Police Department, Arlington County Public Library, Arlington Chapter of American Red Cross, Chevy Chase Bank, Network Plus Tutorial, ACME HOMES, Sky Travels, Horizon Tours, State Farm Insurance, Maurya Restaurant and Rahi Boutiques for their nice display of products and services. Our thanks to all our members and others who always support our cause. We have tried our best to make the event a success.

Clown with the crowds

Our special thanks to Ms. Nilima Mehara of CHITRAMELA TV, KLIEDOSCOPE TV ,IMAGE IN ASIA TV and SALAAM INDIA TV, Mr... Chandar of NAMASTE ASIA TV and also to MASUMA KHATUN and Wali Fahmi of BANGLA TV to promote the festival. BANGLA BHALO BHASHI TV program ran a whole show on BANGLA SCHOOL on the day of the Festival ( April 7th). Also there will be an half hour special on UPAHAR-BANGLADESH MELA on all four most CHITRAMELA, KLIEDOSCOPE TV, IMAGE IN ASIA TV AND SALAAM INDIA will be broadcast at the end of April, 2002. Channel 31 of Arlington and Namaste Asia also planning to show the footage of the Mela.

Our thanks to Mr.. Shamim Chowdhury and Roquia Haider for their excellent work on conducting Master of Ceremony. Their beautiful presentation of the show was very skillful work of professionalism.

We feel good, if you all enjoy it. Please come to our next annual Program UPAHAR-Bangladesh mela 2003. Please note the date of our next mela mentioned below.

OUR NEXT 11th UPAHAR-Bangladesh Mela 2003 will be held in APRIL 5, 2003. (Co-sponsored by Arlington County Multi-Cultural Department).

As in April our Bengali New year starts, from now on we will arrange this mela program on First week-end of April in each year. We are in verge of getting a proclamation from Arlington County Board and Arlington County Multicultural Department to recognize APRIL as the BANGLADESH MONTH.

As most of you know last year Arlington County Board issued a proclamation to recognize to observe 21st February as an International Mother Language Day in Arlington County, which was a big victory not only for BCCDI, as well as for the Bangladeshi-American community in Washington Metro Area. We are confident to get the another proclamation to name April as the BANGLADESH MONTH.

PLEASE ACCEPT OUR ALL TIME INVITATION FOR UPAHAR-BANGLADESH MELA IN FIRST SATURDAY IN THE MONTH OF APRIL EACH YEAR.

Thanks to all our sponsors of the program for their great contribution in the raffle draw and also thanks to every volunteer and our member of Board Of Directors for their hard and dedicated work.

Thanks to Nilima Mehara of Salaam India and Kaleidoscope TV and Channel 31 TV for video taping the program. Thanks to Mr..Mohammad Bhuiyan- Nantu being official show photographer.

Finally our deepest appreciation to Mary Briggs, Kerrie Salazar of Arlington County Multicultural Office and Technical staff members of the Washington Lee High School for their full hearted support to make the festival a great success.

Bangladesh Center for Community Development, Inc. (BCCDI)
" WORKING FOR COMMUNITY"
(A non-profit tax exempt organization)