In a session with DCPUK, our NGO at Rangpur, the supervisor Ayesha Akter and her eight teachers summarized their experiences in the last five years as follows:
The slum community highly appreciates our role in preparing their small children for primary school and proving after-school coaching from class one to five. The parents have subsistence living with the average joint family income of 2000-3000 BDT (25-37 USD) per month, which is about a dollar a day or less. Most of the time they do manual labor of all sorts to make a living, leaving their homes early and coming back late with the children unsupervised – basically playing on the streets.
There was no concept of sending the children to school just five years ago in the communities they serve – the parents were too busy in the daily struggle to pay attention to that. When DaPeace one-room schools showed up and established within their community, they had no objections to letting the children go to the classroom as it was so conveniently located by only a few minutes of walking.
Now they see the dramatic progress in reading and writing their children make within six months of starting the school. They are simply amazed that their children only 5 years old have come to learn as much.
The academic progress of our preschool students is better than the children who are in grade one in the primary schools in many instances – and I can see the pride when Ayesha was saying that.
The parents now flock to the DoPeace centers even from distance. Our classrooms fill rather quickly for the new year.
The after-school coaching program in each school has provided tremendous value added to their children who are unable to pay for such services in the private setting. This has allowed children not only to continue their education, but also to be in good standing in the class year after year.
Our easy admissions process, which is simply showing up at the school, has helped, and our willingness to accept disabled children is highly appreciated. We do this even when we are totally ill equipped to serve the disabled by any standards, except that we do treat them with love and affection and that there is no other option for them whatsoever.
DCPUK is proud to offer these services to the 1,680 children of the disadvantaged community.
Photo. The teachers at our meeting yesterday with DCPUK, Rangpur, Bangladesh.
