The brothers in Bangladesh
From the beginning, the brothers focused on young people. They set up small schools for the poor, found ways to support students in their studies, organised regular meetings for prayer and reflection in different parts of the country, and much more. One of the brothers, who has since passed away, taught at the major seminary in Dhaka for over thirty years.
An important concern that has emerged over the years is that of people with disabilities. Already in Chittagong and Dhaka, the brothers were involved with the poor people with disabilities who at that time had virtually no support in society. Over the years, awareness of their plight has grown in the country and there are now many organisations dedicated to their needs. The brothers set up one of the first organisations in Mymensingh in the early 1990s, the "Community Centre for the Handicapped", and introduced pilgrimages for the disabled into the Church. They were also instrumental in setting up the only L’Arche community in Bangladesh, in their neighbourhood of Mymensingh.
The brothers work not only with Bengalis, but also with people from different indigenous groups, especially the Garos (also known as Mandi) who make up the majority of Christians in the Mymensingh district. As in Taizé, they pray three times a day and try to sow seeds of reconciliation between Christians of different denominations, members of different ethnic groups and followers of different religions. Their contact with different groups is constant and people from all walks of life come and go in their compound: students from college, university or Koranic schools, poor women, street children, Christians of all denominations in the country, Hindus, Muslims and agnostics.
