Rabiul Azam was one of the pioneers of the gender socialization movement in the northern most districts of Panchagarh, Thakurgaon, and Dinajpur in northwestern Bangladesh. This unique person has worked throughout his life to establish the rights of the abandoned communities in this region. He has worked to achieve and protect the rights of not only deprived women, but also all the disadvantaged people in this area, including men, women, children and adolescents. This extraordinary man worked throughout his life to establish the gender discrimination free society for all.

Rabiul Azam was born in 1955 in an honored Muslim family in a remote village of Chandanbari Union in Panchagarh district. His father Late Abbas Ali and mother Late Motia Begum. His education began in his own village school. After passing his matriculation, he enrolled in Thakurgaon College and later in Rajshahi University for further studies. After completing his studies, he came to Thakurgaon with the vision that something must be done to establish and to protect the rights of the disadvantaged and unprivileged people and started working.

Although Rabiul Azam came to Thakurgaon and did various kinds of work for livelihood, he thought of how he would stand by the deprived, exploited and marginalized people. He believed that women and children are the most discriminated victims of our society. He was noticed on his way - street children those who were sleeping on the street/station at night, cutting grass, selling nuts, collecting paper, leaves picking, working as assistants to rickshaw and bicycle repairmen. With these street children, he established an evening informal school in 1984, which was completely voluntary. The children worked during the day and went to school at the evening. Thus, he continued working for the development of the underprivileged people of the society along with various other works as a volunteer.

Rabiul Azam was a very simple and human being person. He liked to intimate with people from different classes. However, his preferred area was the poor, hardworking, marginalized people of the rural community. He would talk to them very closely and explore his point of view of work, looking for stories of discrimination in the society, which were his main vision. He would constantly talk over and altercation views with his like-minded friends and social associates. At one point, they felt it was necessary to form an organization to appliance our vision.

Since 1986, Manab Kalyan Parishad – MKP has established as an organization. Rabiul Azam was the founder director of this MKP. After incepetion of MKP, he worked for the underprivileged, oppressed and disadvantaged peoples until his death with the assistance of different national and international funds.

Rabiul Azam, on his own initiative, brought together social organizations to improve the quality of life of the backward communities, especially women and children, in the abandoned areas of northern Bangladesh, and created a network called NGO Cell, which could further expand the scope of work for the disadvantaged, oppressed and deprived classes of this region. He also worked tirelessly by joining other networks -

• Founder Chairman, Thakurgaon NGO Cell,
• Founder Chairman, Bangladesh Resource Center for Indigenous Knowledge (BARCIK)
• Member of PLANet
• Member of Association of Development Agencies in Bangladesh-ADAB
• Member of Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (BSAF)
• Member, STI/AIDS Network Bangladesh
• Member, District Post Flood Rehabilitation Program
• Member of District & Upazila MNH committee
• Member of District Violence against Women committee
• Member of District Community Policing committee, etc

Rabiul Azam's special characteristic was that he worked silently, he did not like publicity. Therefore, he was not interested in accepting any kind of honor in recognition of his work for the development of the backward communities. Even then, he received all the recognitions from national and international platforms without his knowledge –

• Sher-e-Bangla Award,
• Kazi Nazrul Islam award
• Award given from Diakonia for long day Partnership etc.

Rabiul Azam had a childlike mind. He loved spending time with children. Children's speech, behavior, sports, their thoughts, attitudes, considerations, passions, esteems and admiration - everything attracted him. He has worked against the injustice, oppression and torture of children from marginalized groups till his death. He worked to establish the rights of children, mental flourishment as well as adolescent girls’ rights of minority ethnic groups. In 2017, with his interest and inspiration, has been established a small school named "Mukti Shishu Niketan" for children from marginalized communities on the MKP premises for the humanistic and intellectual development of children.

The extraordinary Rabiul Azam is called a promoter of gender sensitization in this region. Thousands of words would not serve to describe his contribution to the promotion of human rights and gender equality. Rabiul Azam will always be remembered as a relentless leader and lifelong inspiration for all human rights defenders and activists.