Chalantika is a slum center for education in Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka. It provides free educational support to 80 children and their guardians. There are two kinds of classes: first help students with their classes, which reduces high drop-out rate. Second prepare pre-school children to enter the first class, which is mandatory and paid in Bangladesh. Also, there is a close contact works with all the childrens guardians, mostly women, during literacy and sewing courses.
The majority of Bangladeshi slum children (4 out of 5) do not attend schools or on very irregular basis. To enter the first class in elementary school, children must complete a preparatory one-year class. However, this class is paid and so prevents slum families to send their children to school. They often encourage the children to work from a very young age, rather than attending a school. Non-educated children have no future and they end up being trapped in the vicious circle of poverty.
Chalantika center provides school support to 80 underprivileged slum children between 5-10 years and support them further during the attendance of the state school, especially this support is very important as there is persistent high number of drop outs. It also provides wide range of services to the children including healthcare, nutritious food and leisure time activities. It also supports their parents, offering them variety of courses (literacy, sewing, health etc.)
Providing 80 children and their parents with education and other services will increase their possible prospect for better job in the future. This will ultimately lead to diminished poverty and improvement of their overall living standards among Chalantika slum inhabitants.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
