As a volunteer teacher, Aymar Ahmed has made a difference in the lives of young children who live in the Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh. These children had been uprooted from their homes in Myanmar and had fled to the camp.

In the neighboring country of Myanmar, soldiers made life impossible for Muslims living in the area of Arakan that borders Bangladesh. In 2017, many refugees from this region were allowed into Bangladesh, and the refugee camp at Rohingya was created. Most of the people who came there are still living in the same camps, but some have been relocated to other surrounding islands.

Aymar grew up and attended schools in Bangladesh, and he became aware of the refugee camps as everyone was talking about it. Aymar and his family moved to the U.S. in 2022, but in 2021, his mother went to the camp to do some data collection and she told him everything that she saw. Aymar wanted to see things for himself, and he wanted to help.

Aymar applied through a Non-Government Organization to work in the Rohingya camp as a volunteer. He set up an improvised classroom where he taught students basic English and math, and he served food to the children, some of whom took the food back to their families. He also helped with flu shots by explaining what the shot was for. The children he taught were 4 to 5 years old. His goal was to establish a secure and supportive learning atmosphere where students could develop both intellectually and emotionally. His 40 students called him big brother and talked about everything with him, especially when one-on-one. The students' tenacity and desire to learn in the face of difficulty made a deep impression on Aymar.

Aymar shared that the work of volunteers like himself was important for peace building. After his one-on-one conversations with the kids, they would go away smiling and that was peace. He said, “It’s not about the work I did, but for me, it’s mainly about putting a smile on their face. In their own country, they were so horribly treated.”

As Aymar looks to his future, he plans to become a doctor and provide affordable health care to people deprived of it. “I want to be able to continue my quest to help others,” he said.