বাংলা 
English 
Like ten other villages of an Indian nationhood ravaged under the shackles of British subjugation, the memory-laden village of Hatsh Haripur of Bengal. A step away is the kuthi (indigo factory house) of Shilaidaha. On one side of it is Fakir Lalon Shah, and beside it Kumarkhali, steeped in the memories of Mir Mosharraf, Kangal Harinath and Akshay Kumar Maitreya. And on the other side, Sri Sri Anukul Thakur. On one side the beckoning Padma; and Haripur lies within the embrace of the Gorai that runs along its banks. Jaher Ali Mia was born in this village in 1918.
His father was Okil Uddin. Among five brothers and two sisters, in a humble Bengali household like any one of ten others, he was the eldest; helping his father with his work, he did not have the good fortune of going beyond the bounds of school. As the unfeigned friend of the poet Azizur Rahman, he became educated through self-teaching.
In 1942-43, fired by an anti-British consciousness, a force of the well educated took shape in Haripur. He was a member of this force. In 1949 he came to Kushtia town. From his earliest years he had within him the urge to work with children and to put smiles on their faces. For that reason he had a substantial contribution to women's education and to the education of helpless, destitute and widowed women and of the elderly.
He has left his signature as an accomplished social worker, a lover of children, a successful father in his own household, and in the social arena a signature of his kind of devotion. In 1951-52, when Kushtia College was still toddling on unsteady feet, he donated 100 benches for the students to sit on. In 1955 he donated a large share toward the purchase of an X-ray machine for Kushtia Sadar Hospital; for that reason his name is engraved on the present Civil Surgeon's office building.
In the great War of Independence the Pakistani invaders burned down his house. Establishing a children's hospital in Kushtia was the great wish of his life. In 1982 he took the initiative to establish the children's hospital and donated one bigha of land in the town [worth about Tk 40 lakh]. He donated to the development of the Kushtia Eidgah; the coconut trees around the Eidgah were planted from his donation. He was involved with various organizations including the Kushtia Students' Welfare Foundation, Kushtia Homoeopathy College, Shahid Hasan Faiz Secondary Girls' School, the Family Planning Association and the Kushtia Development Council. The pourashava (municipality) named a road at Peyaratala after him. He did not hanker after any post; he never took any office in the institutions he himself founded. Jaher Ali was a lover of people, averse to publicity. He passed away on 14 June 2005.
The DC of Kushtia, Mr. Abul Khair, had said: "Since coming to Kushtia, among these 22 lakh people I have found only one social worker and devoted soul - he is Jaher Ali Mia."
He built the Azizur Rahman Smriti Sangsad (Azizur Rahman Memorial Council). His elder son Ashraf Uddin Noju has become a social worker just like him. With a university's highest degree, he has dedicated himself to social service. He is carrying out the responsibility of editor of the South Asia Children's Forum with a good reputation. As a national and international child organizer he has already earned fame at home and abroad.
