Think is a volunteer-led humanist charity co-founded in 2019 by Bonya Ahmed and Imtiaz Shams. Building on the astonishing successes obtained so far, with thousands of followers and millions on views on YouTube and Facebook, in 2021 our Associate Think will produce a series of 14 open-license videos on the climate crisis in both Bangla and English, while increasing the support provided to the Bangladeshi humanist community via their group “থিংকবাংলা আড্ডা (ThinkBangla Adda)”.
Think School, a registered non-profit, was founded in 2019 as an antidote to disinformation, and to promote critical thinking and real-world change, starting with Bangladesh. Its founders and staff escaped terrorism there, with co-founder Bonya Ahmed’s freethinking blogger platform shut down after the widely-publicized attack on her life and murders of her husband and fellow humanist writers.
To date, Think has created 26 videos in Bangla and 13 in English (tailored to ESL speakers) on important yet taboo topics like evolution, menstruation and trans-sexuality. Think’s content is free, distributed via social media, and written in collaboration with academics from the global humanist network. Think gained:
Think’s rapidly-growing audience and engagement evidences demand, and the plugging of knowledge gaps.
Think’s project aims to be a humanist response to the global climate crisis. In this project, Think will release 14 open-license videos in a series on the climate crisis, in Bangla and English for ESL speakers – here is the launch video in English and in Bangla. Project funding will compensate contributors, filming, editing and paid amplification.
Bangladesh – and much of India – are exceptionally vulnerable to climate change. It is an undeniably humanist issue as identified by the Reykjavik Declaration and the greatest threat to the Bangla-speaking world, via a poll of the 5,300-strong Facebook Group, ‘Think Adda’.
Accurate, up-to-date information and action points are difficult to find online in Bangla. Where they exist in English, they are often by and for Western audiences. Think’s project will include climate-change explainer videos determined via surveys and a mini-documentary.
By project close Think aims to grow subscribers to 120,000 and gain at least 2,000,000 impressions across the series. KPIs will be set according to historic performance and measured via standard social media management tools. A mini-documentary on the destruction of the Sundarbans (a mangrove forest critical to biodiversity, where the endangered Bengal tiger roams) will be produced and used to pitch a full-length version to suitable news media and streaming platforms.
Think will additionally effect offline change by directing viewers to petition local policymakers and industry. The videos in English will be shared with Humanist International Members and Associates to subtitle or dub into their local languages; inspiring more humanist organisations to create local climate crisis-related content alongside supporting activism in Bangladesh. This project’s measurable KPI’s gives both Think and Humanist International access to further climate-financing opportunities via corporates and foundations (who may not traditionally fund humanist organisations), empowering sustainable growth beyond just Think’s humanist supporters.
