SCHOOL RESUME AFTER VACATION

The Dhaka Project School reopens today after 10 days of vacation with festive attire. At the school, hundreds of little souls are found chirping around wearing colorful dresses.Students decorated their own class with colorful balloons, festoons, stickers & ribbons; today they were allowed to act upon whatever their desire in guidance of the respective class teachers; they sang, danced and recited poems.As a get together after Eid & Puja vacation, The Dhaka Project has decided earlier to make this festive moment more ornamented offering a treat for the entire school. Besides their daily breakfast, today the youngsters have enjoyed something more. All the students along with the teachers & office-staffs were offered a snack-pack comprising cookies, an Apple & a piece of Jilapi.Earlier these snacks items were packaged by the TDP staffs-attendants on the roof-top of TDP School with the direct execution by Administrative Asst. Manager, Mr. Rashedul Islam & Mr. Azad, Senior Project Officer.
The Dhaka Project feels happy to count the smile of almost 500 students once they have got the snacks.

CHULLI WATER TREATMENT SYSTEM

Information gathered during and after the delivery of a hand washing and hygiene program for all TDP school students indicated that many families are not boiling water prior to drinking as a routine. Some families indicated that this was due to time constraints and lack of money to purchase extra fuel for this purpose. For this reason the Health Care Team decided that a safe drinking water education program was needed for the families and guardians of TDP students. The students know clearly that only boiled water is safe but they must rely on their guardians to provide them with boiled water.
It was decided that it would be necessary to educate the community around the importance of always boiling drinking water and to also provide a simple means of accessing safe drinking water. Whilst researching the topic the team looked at using iodine or chlorine purification of water as a possible option but decided against this when information about the chulli water treatment system was found, see below. While families cook their meals 30 litres of safe drinking water is produced by the chulli water treatment system.
The Chulli water treatment System for household pasteurization of drinking water was invented by a Bangladeshi, Professor Mohammad Fakhrul Islam and is now being used widely throughout Bangladesh Oxfam and other international NGOs as well as other developing countries. The details of research of the system which effectively removes coliform bacteria from ground water can be found in J HEALTH POPUL NUTR 2006 Sep;24(3):356-362.
The Chullli Water Treatment system is available from an organisation called WagTech so a visit was made to see their test site in Savar. Three staff from Wagtech then travelled to Gawair and showed TDP staff how to install the chulli water treatment system. A working model was installed at a group of houses close to TDP office so that families could be called more easily to attend education and information sessions. Installation took place on Friday 21st August 2009, a holiday, so we are very grateful for the time given by Wagtech staff David Nunley, Asia Pacific Rim Representative , Mr Ali Ashraf, Proprietor and Shoed for taking the time to travel to Gawair and supervise installation as well as donating the original test chulli water treatment system.
TDP plans for all families who cook with chulli to have access to a chulli water treatment system and is asking families to contribute what they can toward the cost of the chulli so that they will have ownership and ensure it is maintained and cared for. Families who do not have financial means but would benefit from the water treatment system will be provided with the unit.
A survey of all TDP families is currently taking place as part of the Safe Drinking Water program and a wider Water and Sanitation project looking at presence and quality of water supply, latrines, and cooking facilities so that a plan can be put in place to make improvements to the lives of TDP student families. Significant fundraising will be needed make improvements as several families have already been identified as having no toilet facilities or unsafe and inadequate facilities.
It must also be noted that Brendan Heery visited TDP as a volunteer at the same time the HCC was planning their Safe Drinking Water program, he has a particular interest in Water and sanitation and is an engineer so he continues to be involved during visits to Gawair and from his base in Dubai.

CREATING AWARENESS ABOUT SWINE-FLU & EYE-SCREENING

Thanks to Leo Club of Dhaka Heaven Plus !
The program was a conscious contribution of Leo Club of Dhaka Heaven Plus as their part of Community Service Projects to the children of The Dhaka Project School. The main aim of the program was to create awareness and explain the ways to take precaution against Swine-Flu & perform a handy Eye-Screening session.Young members of Leo Club demonstrated a presentation on the causes & effects of Swine-Flu. They discussed about the ways to prevent this disease & also gave tips about some general health issues i.e. not to eat low quality candies, food those are expired, etc. They came up with some interesting stories to make the children understand how such things can be harmful. The students listened to them very carefully and it seemed they learned from the presentation. TDP School teachers performed a remarkable sense of duty by encouraging the children.Later on, Leo Club organized an Eye-Screening session for the young-buds of TDP School. Two professional eye specialists from Lions Eye Institute & Hospital maintained thorough check-up of children's eye-sight & prescribed recommendation if needed. Leo Club members executed the event; Mr. Shimul, Senior Operation Officer, Dr. Jahid, Medical In-charge and MS. Faria, TDP Family Counselor facilitated both the event.
Once again thanks a lot to the Leo Club of Dhaka Heaven Plus for thinking and caring about our kids.

EYE-SCREENING AT TDP SCHOOL

The Dhaka Project is always concerned about the children health-care issues beside the academic lesson provided to the youngsters of The Dhaka Project School.
Henceforth, an Eye-Screening session has been held on 12/9/09 at the school.
Jane from ICEE (International Centre for Eye care Education) and Daniel, a volunteer from AYAD (Australian Youth Ambassador for Development) made this event possible.Students from Play-group to Std- VII were present to check-up their eyes.The event was divided in two parts.
First of all, Daniel and Julie, (Julie is another volunteer working at TDP), examined the children’s difficulties in reading books or writings on White-board in the classroom through asking them few basic questions. Teachers of TDP School were interpreting for the convenience.Then children were sent to Jane for instrumental diagnosis one by one. She tested the eye-sight of the children. She filled the data of each student & prescribed recommendation if necessary.
Dentist of TDP, Amirul Islam helped her on this occasion.
Thanks to Jane, Daniel, Julie and to ICEE and AYAD for having taken care of our children's eyes.

IT WORKSHOP FOR TDP SCHOOL CHILDREN

An IT Workshop for the senior students of TDP School was held on 12/9/09 at the computer lab.
Luke & Peter, two volunteers from AYAD (Australian Youth Ambassador for Development) took initiative to give fundamental computer literacy to the students.They taught them how to work with MS Office, especially, MS Word & MS Power Point.
Later on, Sarah, another volunteer from AYAD, joined them and demonstrated a Power Point presentation to explain the issues more delicately.Students were eagerly listening to them and using the techniques enthusiastically.
IT Manager, Rashedul Ahsan and Mohabbat Jahan, IT Teacher of TDP School facilitated the program.
Thanks to Luke, Peter, Sarah and to the AYAD organization for this important action !

THANK YOU JEBEL ALI SCHOOL

Once again, Jebel Ali School in Dubai extended their hand to provide all children of The Dhaka Project School regular clothing. On the 2nd of September ‘09, students were distributed these casual dress by The Dhaka Project School at the school building for the rest of the month.
The Dhaka Project will always recall the contribution of Jebel Ali School with gratitude. The Dhaka Project is also grateful to Maria and Sharon who were in execution of accumulating these clothes for the children.

OPEN SALE FOR THE COMMUNITY

As a regular part of fund raising activity, a "Cloth Sale" was organized by The Dhaka Project on 1st September, '09 at the open field in front of the office building at Gawair.  Clothes of different types & size, for the adults were placed for sale at nominal price.

Before the sale, an announcement held around the Gawair community to inform them about the sale. People of different ages gathered at the sale & bought clothes according to their need.

A total of about 2,000.00 BDT was raised from the sale.

All these clothes were arrived from Dubai carried by the Cabin Crews of Emirates Airlines while their flight to Dhaka. The Dhaka Project is grateful to them. More over, our gratitude goes to all the donors in Dubai who actually fill our storage room with varieties of clothes.

The huge task of maintaining the crowd as well as the Sale was regulated by Mr. Azad, Senior Project Officer, Mr. Shimul, Senior Operation Officer and other office attendants.

CLOTH & TOY DISTRIBUTION AMONG THE KIDS

A cloth distribution event was held at the roof-top of The Dhaka Project School building. Being promised to proper clothing, varieties of children's clothes arrived from Dubai as donation, were distributed among the children, starting from KG-I to Std- VII, on 30th & 31st August consequently by The Dhaka Project.

Each day from 1.00 pm to 3.00 pm, Senior Project Officer, Mr. Azad along with two office attendants distributed the cloths. Meanwhile, the youngsters of Day-care centre and Play-group are now busy with different types of colorful toys.

These toys were donated by Mark Coady, Commercial Manager of First Select International. Mr. Azad distributed these toys.