Author:

Swapan Kumar Guha is a Co-Founder of Rupantar and a development activist whose career, spanning since 1990, has been built on the conviction that culture and communication are central to social change. As Executive Director, he provides strategic leadership across the organization’s development portfolio, with a long-standing focus on human rights, women’s empowerment, gender justice, environmental conservation, including biodiversity conservation of the Sundarbans, and the strengthening of local governance and decentralization in Bangladesh.

A theatre activist since 1976, Swapan has worked with leading theatre organizations across Khulna and co-founded Rupantar Institute of Folk Theatre (RIFT), now recognized as the largest folk theatre institute in Asia. He is a joint innovator of the revival of traditional Bengali folk song and folk culture, particularly Pot Song, a heritage art form he has helped adapt into a powerful tool for grassroots communication and social mobilization.

His expertise in Development Communication (DevCom) draws directly from this cultural grounding, using theatre, folk song, and participatory cultural forms to carry messages on rights, governance, and environmental stewardship into coastal and rural communities in ways that conventional communication cannot reach. He has built this expertise through specialized training in development theatre and theatre management, and through international study and advocacy programmes focused on participatory strategic planning and local governance reform.

He completed an international training course on Fiscal Decentralization and Local Government Financial Management at Duke University, USA, and holds a graduate degree in Arts.

Rafiqul Islam Khokan has spent over 40 years at the forefront of community-based environmental and development work in Bangladesh’s southwestern coastal region. A development activist since 1984, he began his career in disaster management before expanding into environmental conservation, with a particular focus on biodiversity conservation of the Sundarban, the ecosystem at the heart of Rupantar’s water and climate resilience work.

As Executive Director of Rupantar since 1992, he provides the strategic vision and institutional oversight behind the organization’s environmental and water-focused programming, guiding initiatives in community-managed water access, sanitation infrastructure, and climate-resilient livelihoods for coastal communities. His leadership has steered Rupantar’s disaster risk reduction and climate resilience work from frontline relief toward locally led adaptation, a trajectory reflected in his participation in the 17th International Conference on Community-Based Adaptation to Climate Change (CBA17) in Bangkok.

Rafiqul has cultivated partnerships with government agencies and community institutions to embed environmental and WASH programming within local governance systems. He has represented Rupantar at international forums on localization and climate adaptation, including a conference on localization in Switzerland and the Open Government Partnership Summit in Tallinn, carrying community-level lessons from the Sundarban coast into global policy dialogue.

A pioneer of peace and tolerance programming within Bangladesh’s development sector, Rafiqul has championed social cohesion and pluralism as foundations for resilient communities, recognized through Rupantar’s representation at the Global Pluralism Award Ceremony in Ottawa and his engagement at an international conference on countering extremism and social media in the United Kingdom. He is also a recognized practitioner of Development Communication (DevCom), using folk media, community theatre, Pot Song, and grassroots publications to translate complex environmental and social messages into forms that resonate with coastal communities, an approach rooted in his early career as a researcher and writer on Bangladesh’s popular cultural forms.

He completed an international training course on Fiscal Decentralization and Local Government Financial Management at Duke University, USA, and continues to guide Rupantar’s research, documentation, and knowledge management on environmental conservation, climate resilience, and community development.

Md. Abrarul Islam currently serves as Head of Finance at Rupantar, where he leads organizational compliance, financial management, internal control, and audit systems in line with donor requirements and regulatory standards. He oversees budgeting, financial reporting, grant disbursement, and reconciliation across the organization’s project and institutional accounts, ensuring transparency and accountability at every level.

He is a Chartered Accountant, having qualified through a rigorous three-year article period with a leading Bangladeshi audit firm affiliated with a major international accounting network, where he conducted statutory and group audits across power, telecommunications, and NGO sectors, including donor fund verification, FD-4 reporting, and HACT compliance assessments. He is also a registered Income Tax Practitioner with the National Board of Revenue and a member of the Income Tax Bar Association, Khulna.

At Rupantar, Abrarul has led the development and revision of finance, procurement, and compliance manuals, prepared financial statements in accordance with international and national accounting standards, and provided technical mentoring to partner organizations on budgeting, donor reporting, and internal control systems. He has served as Finance and Compliance Manager for multiple donor-funded programmes, supporting grant management, audit readiness, and statutory tax compliance throughout.

He holds an MBA in Accounting and Information Systems from Jahangirnagar University and completed his Chartered Accountancy qualification under the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh.

Manju Ara Parvin has spent nearly two decades building the institutional backbone of Rupantar, an organization of over 18 years’ standing where she now leads Human Resource Management. Her work sits at the intersection of organizational integrity and social inclusion: she has designed and mainstreamed Rupantar’s policies on gender equality, disability inclusion, and protection against sexual harassment, embedding equity into the systems that govern how the organization recruits, manages, and supports its people.

Beyond her institutional role, Manju has volunteered since 2011 as a counselor for women and child survivors at the Khulna One-Stop Crisis Center (OCC), a frontline commitment to survivor support that has spanned more than 14 years alongside her HR leadership. She also represents Rupantar as its focal person on the GENGOV Platform, a national network exchanging learning on gender-responsive governance.

Manju joined Rupantar in 2007 as Accounts and Admin Officer, moved into project coordination, and has headed HR Management since October 2010, a trajectory that reflects the trust and continuity she has built within the organization over nearly 19 years.

She holds a Master of Commerce in Accounting and an MBA in Human Resource Management.

Faruque Ahmed has spent nearly 26 years at the frontline of environmental conservation, disaster management, and climate change adaptation in Bangladesh’s southwestern coastal belt. As Program Director of Rupantar’s Environment, Disaster Management and Climate Change Adaptation (DMCC) programme, he provides strategic leadership in designing, managing, and overseeing initiatives spanning climate resilience, environmental sustainability, disaster risk reduction, and community-based water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) programming.

His field experience runs through Bangladesh’s most significant climate disasters, including emergency response to Cyclone Sidr in 2007 and Cyclone Aila in 2009, where he led efforts to restore and improve water and sanitation access for cyclone-affected coastal communities. Leading Rupantar’s environment and disaster management work since 2000, he has directed numerous multi-year programmes that rebuilt safe water infrastructure, strengthened community water management systems, and reduced water-related vulnerability for households across the coastal belt.

Faruque also serves as Honorary Director of Sundarbans Academy, advancing awareness and livelihood resilience among coastal communities dependent on the Sundarbans. A regular contributor to Rupantar’s environmental journal, Badabon, he has authored and edited publications on climate change and disaster impact, translating field learning into knowledge products for wider audiences. His professional engagements span study visits and exchanges across Asia, Europe, Africa, and North America.

He brings deep technical grounding in disaster risk reduction, emergency WASH response, and climate-resilient water systems, paired with proven experience mobilizing resources and building partnerships with government bodies and community organizations to expand safe water access along the coast.