Co-Founder Of Bangladesh Company Partners With Tulsa Sustainability Alliance

Twice a year, OU hosts a Professional Fellows program that brings business leaders from South Asia to Oklahoma as part of a cultural exchange.

Farhana Rashid is the co-founder and CEP of Bhumijo in Bangladesh and she and the company are partnering with Tulsa's Sustainability Alliance. Rashid joined News On 6 with Morgan Fehrle from the Alliance to talk about the partnership and the valuable exchange.

Reagan: So first, I wanted to talk about Bhumijo, that's part of what you're working on in the community? What do you all do? And how important is that to back home?

Rashid: So as you said, I'm from Bangladesh. It's a South Asian country. So Bangladesh is doing really, really great in terms of economic development. But due to rapid urbanization, so you know, we still lead some urban facilities like public toilets, and public spaces, so we don't have enough and accessibility is an issue, especially for women. So, I have been there for my whole life most of my life, so I have never found any good quality toilets. So what I did, I have seen my mom, my female friends, everyone, I mean, those who are female, they don't drink enough water while they are outside. So we thought this is the smartest solution until I have found out one of my aunts actually passed away. So it's UTI recurrent UTI, which turns into kidney failure. And then I decided, I needed to do something during that time, I was doing my master's degree in urban planning. So sustainable urban planning, so I decided I needed to work on that I started Bhumijo with my public toilet initiative. So what do we do? Actually, we do build, we do, refurbish. Most importantly, we manage public toilets to create sustainable and accessible public spaces for all.

Reagan: So I got to ask you being here in Oklahoma and Tulsa, what's that experience been like? And what have you learned while being here?

Rashid: So what my expectation was before, it was like, I want to learn how the urban system, how the infrastructure, how people work here to learn about the process to learn about the partnership, and how to make things happen. So this was my expectation. And after coming here, I am also very much with law love in Tulsa, especially with Tulsa, how people love Tulsa. So I'm in love with that.

Reagan: Well, Morgan, I got to ask you, what's it been like, like to host Farhana? And she's very passionate about this.

Fehrle: She is and she is such a great, great resource and wealth of information and knowledge. It was very important for us to be able to host Farhana and this opportunity really to learn from each other and share those global perspectives around sustainability. For us, sustainability includes human health and well-being and Farhana is passionate and excellent at what she's done and has created something even though she didn't necessarily know how to begin doing it. She made it happen so she's an inspiration. We've been able to learn a lot from each other and have some really fun moments and conversations diving into not only the differences that we have between our cultures but the number of similarities so thank you to Farhana for being with us.