Educating the slums

We keep on pushing, to keep a promise that we gave to children and families, which is to give them a good education.

After many years now, we are seeing some results finally, some of our early students graduating with degrees from Portugal, USA, Australia, UAE and Bangladesh, some even with master’s degrees. Thank you so much for your support to make this happen. Of course, the hard work continues.

Despite the success of our projects the issues in deprived communities and slums remain. We don’t see visible improvements yet with gender inequalities or the lack of opportunities for families considered to be low on the scales of social hierarchy in some cultures.

So, we keep fighting to bridge these gaps. It’s not getting easier; in fact, it’s getting more expensive like everything else in the world. But it is important to us that if we can provide a better future for this generation – they will in turn provide a better future for the next generation.

Besides the usual obstacles we face; the social and cultural barriers, poverty, limited access to healthcare and other well documented struggles for deprived communities, one lesser known issue is often peoples own mindsets, especially the parents or older generations who were never educated. They are led to believe that there is no good future or success for them, they don’t understand the benefit of education or see the point in changing or trying to develop. This mentality can be frustrating and hard for us to work with, causing many setbacks – but these and other difficulties are what you must accept when trying to make changes.

But we keep pushing. Our girls at school in Dubai are mostly doing very well, studying hard and developing into beautiful human beings. Although they have partial scholarships at very good schools, the remaining costs are a challenge for which we need your continued support.

The same goes for the students and families in Dhaka, with increasing living and study costs we need your support. We have also seen a lot of success helping to bring students to Dubai for internship opportunities, this way they can a save some money to help with the costs of university. We hope to continue this program if we have the funds.

So, again thank you so much for your continuous support, these projects really would not be possible without it! You are helping us to change the lives for generations to come.

In the last report we told how the girls in Dubai lost their scholarships, after the school ownership changed at the last minute before the new school year started in September. This was heartbreaking. To get them to Dubai, finding their mothers work and sponsorship so that their residence in Dubai is all above board, took months and months and months.

Fortunately some extremely kind souls came forward to help out. Some individuals covered their school fees for 6 months year so that they could go back to school without delay. Also the amazing Taleem schools provided 50% scholarships for the girls. They are really enjoying their studies and doing very well.

The students still at school in Bangladesh are working hard, all dreaming of one day going to university or taking up internship programs in Dubai.

Talking of interns, this program is keeping us very busy, with many businesses supporting this initiative. We realized a long time ago that most of our students in Bangladesh, even the brightest students with a good education, remain disconnected from real opportunities. The barriers they face are often financial, but also societal or cultural, especially the girls.

The aim of this initiative is to connect good candidates with good companies in Dubai and internationally. It comes with many challenges, travel, visas, a place to stay and living costs, but the results have been incredible.

The intern students have made great starts to new careers with some incredible companies in Dubai, including some renown global brands. Many of the students have even gone on to sponsor their own family members, bringing them to Dubai so that they can enjoy the same new beginnings, full of opportunities.

We hope to continue step by step, bringing more students for intern opportunities and keep providing the best education possible to the rest.