his education, he achieved excellence as a student and, unlike most camp youth, managed to study at the high school level. Noor’s family was eager to help him succeed, but struggled to pay for his studies. One day in 2014, Noor’s younger brother went missing, and the family realized that he had left the camps for Malaysia. He was Noor’s youngest sibling, and the family was very worried. Noor says, “We had no idea he was planning to go. Not even my parents knew. A local dalal (trafficker) influenced him, along with another boy. The dalal convinced them, and they decided to go. There was no conversation with our family.” “After a few weeks my brother called to tell us he was in Thailand, at the Malaysia border. He asked us then to send 150,000 taka to the trafficker in order to complete the journey,” Noor recalls. “It was a huge problem, but in order to save my brother’s life, my father and I went around to everyone we knew to borrow some money. And we managed it. My parents didn’t sleep at night after we paid, when he was at sea on the second part of his boat journey. They would come to me while I was in bed and cry to me.” Following that, the brothers’ father decided to arrange Noor’s marriage. He hoped that he could take a large dowry from a middle-class Rohingya family in the camp in order to pay off the debts the family had incurred to pay the trafficker. Having attended many trainings by NGOs, however, Noor had learned about the negative aspects of the dowry system. Noor recalls, “The girl’s family agreed to the marriage and was ready to give us money, but I refused. Even though it was a time of crisis, I refused to accept a dowry.” By this time, there was tension in the family. Noor felt angry at his brother. “I asked him, ‘Why did you go there without informing us?’ That is when my brother told me, ‘There is no future in the camps. Who else would help you continue your studies?’” This is how Noor learned that his education was one of the main reasons why his brother had left the camp. “He wanted to support our family by funding my education. He said that my monthly stipend as a volunteer teacher, 5,000 taka, would not be enough to support the family. He thought it was unsustainable for our family of 11 to continue depending on my small income. I felt awful and I hung up on him.” Noor was able to continue his studies, funding them through his various NGO and teaching jobs. His brother still lives in Malaysia, and the two have since reconciled. INCOME SOURCES BEYOND AID Bangladesh does not allow formal employment for refugees, limiting their legal work opportunities to Cash for Work and NGO volunteer jobs, for which they receive a small stipend. Some camp residents also find work in host communities, often as day laborers. However, this is illegal, and a source of social tensions, because Rohingya, who can supplement their meager earnings with aid, drive local wages down and are perceived as unfair competition by local laborers. Forty-one percent of households report benefiting from Cash for Work, NGO positions, or other job schemes in the camps, for average monthly earnings of 4,783 taka (figure 32). Competition for those jobs is often steep. Some households have set up small shops in front of their Figure 32. Income sources in the prev ious month INCOME SOURCE AVERAGE AMOUNT RECEIVED No income 45% Cash for Work / NGO volunteer 41% Sell rations 18% Remittance 8% Other (running a shop, informal labor, etc.) 6% Multiple response 31 BDT 0 Average monthly income = BDT 2,648 BDT 4, 783 BDT 469 BDT 4, 760 BDT 3, 206