Life is a box of chocolates. You really don’t know what you’re gonna get.
When I packed my bags and left my small village for the capital city Dhaka, I had no idea what was waiting for me. I was just a simple boy with a simple dream. Study hard, get a decent job, make my family proud. No grand ambitions. No master plan. Just a quiet kid from an underprivileged corner of Bangladesh, hoping to build a stable life.
But life had other plans.
In 2020, I got into Dhaka University to study Education. Honestly? It wasn’t a carefully calculated decision. I just ended up there. But something unexpected happened. The more I learned about education, the more I started seeing it differently. Not just as a subject, but as a mirror held up to society. And I didn’t always like what I saw.
That curiosity pulled me into classrooms, debates, community work, internships and eventually into a room full of young people who felt exactly what I felt. That the world was being shaped around us, without us.
In 2021, I joined the Youth Policy Forum as a volunteer. Just trying to learn, grow, and figure things out. By 2024, I was leading it as the Head of Policy Initiatives. I still pinch myself thinking about that.
That role changed everything. I got to work with hundreds of young minds every year, managing policy teams, leading donor-funded projects, and doing what I care about most: fighting for the structured inclusion of young people in governance. Making sure that people from indigenous communities, ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, everyone has a real seat at the table.
Today, I serve as the Senior Officer, Programme and Operations at YPF, managing the full programme portfolio and continuing to build the kind of spaces I once desperately needed myself.
When I look back at that boy who left his village with nothing but hope, I feel an immense sense of gratitude. Not because everything went according to plan. But because nothing did.
Hi, I’m Sad Ebne Walid. A young policy researcher. A village boy who found his purpose in the corridors of policy. And someone who believes deeply that the best solutions come from the people closest to the problems.
