Educare for 150 underprivileged children

Educare for 150 underprivileged children - March Report 2019

Overview

As 2018 comes to an end and the new year begins, we look towards 2019 as a year to overcome the various hurdles being faced by the school children of Tala sub-district in the Satkhira district of Bangladesh. An area suffering severely from climate change and poverty directly affecting the local underprivileged children. Early marriages are a major issue in the region which hampers the future of many female students causing them to drop out of school. The other group being affected are the children from the dalit communities who are considered ‘untouchable’ leading to many forms of discrimination.

As the education system grows and improves across many parts of Bangladesh, it is not the same for this region as 51% of Tala sub-district still remains illiterate.  

Having worked in the area for the past 33 years major steps have been taken by Uttaran to reduce the dropout rate and put a ban on child marriage through creating access to quality education for the underprivileged communities of Tala Upazila. Without sustainable affordability in supporting their children for providing school tuition  and educational materials, it eventually leads children to dropout of school, discrimination and early marriage .

This has led to the campaign “Educare for 150 underprivileged children” in 2017 through GlobalGiving to provide necessary educational materials like school bags, pens, pencils, geometry boxes, copies, school dresses, shoes and stipend.The overall goal of the project is to not only to provide schooling items for the students but also help reduce dropout rates, discrimination against the underprivileged communities, increasing awareness among the local communities’ towards their responsibility for these children, reducing early marriages and allowing students to get quality education without any disruption.

Uttaran would also like to mention the name of two schools Shishutirtho Primary School and Samakal High school along with the local community who have shown tremendous support towards Uttaran to ensure the education of these children.

During the past year the organisation has worked to provide the children with various support to enhance their schooling experience. More than 150 students were given school dresses along with school shoes as well as notebooks, transportation and additional textbooks. Being able to provide these essential items has vastly increased the quality of the student experience and the results have been positive. Similarly the distribution program were taken through mass gathering to increase awareness among the community to stop discrimination and to take responsibility in supporting these students. Three such campaigns were launched where some key issues were discussed and highlighted to the community.

The main points of focus conveyed with emphasis:

Creation of sustainable quality education by encouraging the community and individual families to understand the importance of their children attending school and continuing their education.

The importance of empowering women by providing them equal rights as men in the society and how young girls have the right to continue their study and play on the field just like the boys in the family. The responsibility of the community as a whole to stop early marriage, to reduce dropout rate and to build a society without any class & gender discrimination .    

Recent Developments

Uttaran is yet to receive the required amount of donation to support the children as per the project, thus to compensate Uttaran took support from the local schools and the community.  As our students have graduated to a new class they all have received new academic books from the Government. Uttaran with the help of the school and GlobalGiving have provided copies and stationaries to 160 underprivileged students on January. In addition through constant advocacy and guidance of Uttaran Shishutirtho school have now incorporated few additional books i.e English grammar, Bangla grammar, General knowledge, Word book and Drawing book to improve the overall educational quality and to instill empathy among the students. Under the project the 40 underprivileged students of Shishutirtho school were also provided with the additional books.

A study tour financially supported under the project for Shishutirtho Primary School took placeon February 7, 2019. The children visited the historical Shat Gombuj Mosque and Museum, The shrine of Khan Jahan Ali, The largest mangrove forest Sundarbans, Barakpur Resort and Picnic Corner. The students had a chance to gain knowledge first hand with an out of the class experience. The rich culture and heritage has transcended from the students textbooks to a reality and it has greatly increased motivation towards learning and education.

Samakal High school will be having a similar study tour on theMarch 11, 2019 where the underprivileged students will be provided with financial support to attend the program.

An Annual Sports & Cultural day with a prize giving ceremony by Shishutirtho Primary School took placeon February 14, 2019 with participation from all students and their guardians at the event. The event consisted of 15 different types of sporting categories and a total of 45 students were won prizes. On this day the teachers joined together to cook and cater to all the attending students and their families by preparing lunch. This grand gesture from the teachers helped to create a stronger bond amongst the student-parent-teacher community. The school is considered an ideal role model for all other schools in the area, not only for the excellent results achieved by the students but also for the actions of the teachers as exemplary role models towards the community. At the end of the event issues concerning dropout and early marriage were discussed with parents.  

As 2018 ended, the final exam results came out and everyone eagerly awaited to see the students performance for the term. To everyone's delight, the results were even better than the mid term exams and had improved by an additional 18%. In the past year with minimal support, these children have shown enormous improvement in their results. In total the gross result improved by 38%. Similarly attendance rates in the past three months were even better. The average attendance amongst students increased to 84.33% which indicates that students have better regularity due  to a friendlier schooling environment.

The project is also continuing it’s support in waving tuition fees for 180 students and free transportation for 40 students.

The project has supported 180 students until now, with new school dresses, books, shoes, transportation, educational materials and free tuition. Along with this the students were financially supported for educational field trips and sports. People from at least 10 villages of Tala sub-district are now better aware of the problems faced by the underprivileged children and everyone is stepping forward to make a change. It’s been a year since the project started and we have already noticed and gathered excellent results. 

Summary of the changes observed: 

1)Zero dropout rate among the students who were supported under the project.
2)There were no child marriage among the supported students. Simultaneously, a youth volunteer team has already been formed who actively works against child marriage and abuse. In the recent times they have worked to stop two child marriage in the local community.
3)The average attendance for the supported students are now 84%.
4) Results have improved by 38%.
5)Youths from all walks of life are enthusiastic to participate in various extracurricular activities in school
6)Communities are more concerned about the issue and created a change in perspective by stepping forward in ensuring quality education for their daughters and sons by supporting morally and even monetarily.

Links:

• From children of Shishutirtho to their Donors