Public interest law scholar awarded Fulbright to work with Bihari

Jawaid Stationwala conducted research
for his master's in public health degree
in Kakabo, Bangladesh.

By Jason Kornwitz

Jawaid Stationwala, a public interest law scholar at Northeastern, was awarded a Fulbright scholarship in public health to help build a community health profile in the Bihari Camps in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Stationwala is one of more than 1,450 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad to study, teach or conduct research during the 2008-2009 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, an international exchange program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.

“The Fulbright Scholarship allows me the opportunity to carry out a project I believe in,” Stationwala said. “For the Fulbright U.S. Student Program to believe in the mission of my work is a great honor.”

Backed by an additional two-month Fulbright grant through its Critical Language Scholarship program, Stationwala will travel to India in late December to study Urdu, the primary language spoken in the Bihari camps. Afterward, he will spend nine months in Bangladesh administering a UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) to many of the nearly 250,000 individuals known as the Bihari, an underrepresented population living in camps throughout Bangladesh for the last 37 years.

Though the Supreme Court recently granted the Bihari citizenship, they have often been ignored in research and national censuses, leaving data gaps in basic, though critical health categories. Using MICS, Stationwala will conduct a general household survey, a survey for women between the ages of 15-49 and a survey for children under the age of five, as well as generate information on tuberculosis, employment and occupational risk. Stationwala will collect data on 20 of 48 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) indicators, including infant mortality rate, HIV prevalence in pregnant women ages 15-24, the proportion of the population with sustainable access to a clean water source and the death rate associated with malaria and tuberculosis. In addition, a selected group of Bihari community leaders will participate in workshops, training sessions and field-based exercises to better understand public health principals.

Stationwala, who earned a master’s in public health from BRAC University in Dhaka, said he hopes his survey results will alert commercial and international organizations to the public health struggles of the Bihari and lend the Bihari a voice to advocate for preventative services to improve the health outcomes of their people.

“My desire for the Bihari people is that they have access to the same opportunities as others, including the right to good health,” Stationwala said. “In the end, all people want the same thing: happiness.”

Stationwala begins his first semester at Northeastern’s School of Law in late August and will then take a one-year leave of absence from the university to investigate the health status of the Bihari.

“Northeastern University is well-aligned with how I view education and the ways in which I want to experience education,” he said on his decision to attend Northeastern. “The university is strong in instilling humanitarian values in how they teach law and incorporate it into the curriculum.”