Bangladeshi community marks New Year

The celebrations were carried out with traditional songs, a bridal fashion show as well as stalls featuring traditional foods

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Ahmed Ramzan/Gulf News
Ahmed Ramzan/Gulf News

Dubai: The Bangladeshi community in the UAE celebrated their new year on Saturday at the Dubai Women’s Association.

The celebrations were marked by traditional songs, a bridal fashion show as well as stalls featuring traditional foods, clothes and jewellery.

“April 14 marks the new year, 1422, according to the solar calendar that Bangladesh follows,” Masudur Rahman, Consul General of Bangladesh, said. “It marks the coming of the monsoon and all the festivities correlated with harvesting and sowing new seeds. Even businesses and bookkeepers in Bangladesh mark the day as the turn of their fiscal year.

“Every nook and cranny in Bangladesh is celebrating the New Year,” he said. “Many countries follow the solar calendar besides us, like Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Nepal.”

However, Rahman said that Bangladeshis celebrate festivities that fall in the lunar calendar as well.

“This just goes to show how festive-minded, colourful and vibrant a people we are,” he said.

Saturday’s event was organised by the Bangladeshi Women’s Association (BWA) under the patronage of the Dubai Women’s Association.

Shaikha Ameenah Bint Humaid Al Tayer, chairperson of the Dubai Women’s Association, inaugurated the event, which began at 11am.

“The Bangladeshi Women’s Association is a non-profit charity organisation,” Jaha Ara Afar, vice-president of the group, said. “We help Bangladeshi women in the UAE as well as dole out scholarships for students of the Bangladeshi school in Ras Al Khaimah.”

Afar said the BWA helps their destitute compatriots in the country and provides those in need with money and a plane ticket back to Bangladesh.

“This is a two-part event,” she said. “Up until four o’clock, the event is exclusively for women, after which it is open to anyone who chooses to attend. We have organised cultural programmes, fashion shows, live entertainment as well as stalls highlighting some of our traditional foods and clothes.”

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