Appeal for Volunteers

The Dhaka Project appreciates all the volunteers who contributed a great deal so far. The enormous experience these volunteers’ poses assisted us in many sectors of the project. It’s because of them The Dhaka Project is being able to make people all around the globe aware that children from the slums of Dhaka need their help. The improvisations which our volunteers incorporated from time to time are still proving to be helpful. We appeal people all around the world to come and volunteer for our project to gather and share their thinking and experience to stay beside us in the dream path for breaking the cycle of poverty. One can work throughout their life for self-development but believe us working for these children, no matter if it is for a short period of time, will give heavenly satisfaction and will earn prayer from hundreds of innocent souls together with a priceless experience of dealing and solving such critical problems.

Thank you,

The Dhaka Project Team
www.thedhakaproject.org

Shampoo & Paste Distribution

Hygiene is always a big priority in The Dhaka Project. One of the major reasoning of children to be absent is hygiene related health problems. We often distribute many cleaning products along with routine hygiene programs. Yesterday we have distributed toothpaste for the children of nursery and preschool and demonstrated them various ways of proper brushing technique in playful manners. Then we distributed shampoo and soap among the children of senior school section. Mr. Azad, Project Officer, coordinated the whole distribution process. These products were received as donation from Dubai. We are thankful to them and encourage everyone for more such donations.

Celebration of Bengali New Year - 1416 & Demonstration of Co-curricular Activities (CCA)

At last the grand day had arrived. In which almost all the students could exhibit their talent. For the whole of 3rd quarter the students attended their co-curricular activity classes. So it did not take very long to decide what to perform in the “CCA Demonstration.”

Together with this we had to celebrate the “Bengali New Year - 1416’’ or as we address it as “Pohela Baishakh’’ which coincided with our program as it happened to be a holiday on that day. We intended to celebrate together with our co-curricular activity program which happened to be just the next day on 15th of April. Students sang song to say farewell to the previous year and welcomed the “New Year”.

As soon as it was announced that there is going to be held a program covering the two fields everybody got excited and could not decide which to demonstrate and which not to. So the teacher in-charge had to help them choose the item to perform. CCA classes consisted of art, music, drama, recitation, handwriting, dance, computer and story-telling.

Art: Students presented their drawings. Two students from each class paraded in front of the audience holding the chart-paper in which all the students from each class drew. The theme was open and students could choose quite interesting topics which really attracted the attention of each and every individual present over there for the function.

Music: Students sang song in a group. One girl with a really sweet voice sang for us.

Recitation: Students in groups as well as individually recited both in Bengali and English.

Drama: The drama teacher tried to involve most of the students which happened to be an encouragement as well as a chance for our budding artists to give us an idea of how good actors /actresses they can be. The theme was also equally interesting and of educative value for the students.

Story-Telling: Students from the different levels could tell stories in a quiet appealing manner.

Handwriting: Competition was held in each class and the names of the best three students were announced to encourage the others to improve their handwriting.

Dance: One of the students performed a lively dance depicting the Bengali culture and exhibiting a true love for her country and praising all that can be enjoyed in the country of different gifts showered by the Almighty Allah.

IT: A power- point presentation was conducted by two of our students. Showing pictures of students of the different activities in the project.

This was only the first step to demonstrate “Co-curricular Activities.’’ are going to follow many such steps in the future. After every quarter we will be able to enjoy a function like this and anybody willing to join us are most “Welcome.’’ It will be a pleasure for us to show how much our children are learning amidst fun and folic. It is really interesting to see the young skillful people working in a huge group under the leadership of a leader equally new for the purpose. Now there is no doubt that our young learners are being trained to be the future “Leaders” as “Maria-the founder of this project” wanted to mould each child to be a leader of their country. Together with leadership they are also learning how to cooperate with each other while at work. Now let us keep ourselves ready to watch performers perform after the end of the next quarter which will be the final one before the academic session comes to an end. We are expecting new faces to join us and applaud our dear little performers.

Nine children were sponsored by Trish

Trish Murphy from Ireland came to The Dhaka Project with enormous dedication and promises. She seemed to be a dream merchant for real. She asked all the children what their dream is to be and promised to gift them their dream path. All they need to do is just to walk according to the path. She has sponsored nine bright children from various classes. The children liked her very much and they took some wonderful pictures together. This was not her only contribution. She also worked with the sewing section. She helped the designers of the sewing section with innovative designs and gone through many fashion websites to give them new ideas. The most impressive part of her work was her time management skill. She was always smiling and making fun. It was a great experience to work with her and we hope she will be with The Dhaka Project forever.

Donation from Crossline

Yet another approach of Crossline to help The Dhaka Project was few days earlier donation. As always Crossline donated a huge amount of garment product for the children. The donation included around fourteen big cartons of garment accessories. Not many people have the intention and urge to help such great agenda. Crossline’s intention is among those few who do have the promise. The products included some wonderful accessories for both children and adult. Dedarul Alam, Assistant Sponsorship Manager, coordinated the donation receiving procedure from Crossline’s office at Banani. We thank Crossline so does the children for their contribution and wish them every success and prosperity. Special thanks go to Emanuelle.

Pohela Boishak @ TDP

Pahela Baishakh is first day of the Bangla year. Pahela Baishakh is celebrated in a festive manner. In Bangladesh Pahela Baishakh is a national holiday. Pahela Baisakh falls on April 14. Under the Mughals, agricultural taxes were collected according to the Hijri calendar. However, as the Hijri calendar is a lunar calendar, the agricultural year does not coincide with the fiscal. As a result, farmers were hard-pressed to pay taxes out of season. In order to streamline tax collection, the Mughal Emperor Akbar ordered a reform of the calendar. Accordingly, Fatehullah Shirazi, a renowned scholar and astronomer, formulated the Bangla year on the basis of the lunar Hijri and Bangla solar calendars. The new Fasli San (agricultural year) was introduced on 10/11 March 1584, but was dated from Akbar's ascension to the throne in 1556. The New Year subsequently became known as Bangabda or Bengali year.

The Dhaka Project as an intention to pass on this history to its children arranged a cultural program. All the children participated in the program and did traditional acts. They in the process realized how rich our culture is. Our approach is not only to provide these children with academic education but in the process we will teach them the cultural value as well.

Counseling Session, April, 2009

All the students of The Dhaka Project come from different slums of Dhaka. Most of them come from low-income, uneducated families and migrant dwellers with a variety of underlying issues. By providing education, the Dhaka Project is currently trying to help those kids break away from the culture of poverty, lack of education and opportunities. It is hoped that the counseling program will support the students, by focusing more on their psychological well-being as an investment for their future. We aim to recruit Psychology and Clinical Psychology students from the Dhaka University, to work as volunteer counselors for the Dhaka Project. We believe students of these two departments have basic theoretical knowledge of working with such underprivileged children. The volunteers will give an hour of their time per week to counsel students and/or parents in the Dhaka Project. The volunteers will be appreciated for their by service by providing free counseling training, two references and two certificates

The Aims:

• To reduce students drop out by providing counseling.
• To make the students aware so that they can come to school and think the school is a beautiful thing.
• To change their behavior through counseling.
• To reduce low achievements in the classes.
• To create a safe space for the children to freely express them through playing, drawing and talking.
• To help children build confidence in themselves and their future.
• To work alongside the teachers and identify barriers of learning (i.e. difficulties at home, learning difficulties) and help the children to overcome them.
• To act as role models for the children, someone whom the children can relate and aspire. Therefore volunteers will be allocated in the groups accordingly.
• To encourage and teach the children to be supportive to each other.

Hand Washing Awareness

On Thursday the 2nd of April 2009 the hand washing awareness program delivered their last session of the series of four education and awareness raising workshops approaching the topic in different ways. The program has been taking place since February 2009 on most Thursday mornings with 30 students in attendance.

The final program included eighteen very excited students performing three dramas, a presentation of prizes for the poster drawing competition and the awarding of certificates of attendance and gifts to all students and families who took part in the Hand Washing Awareness program.

The full hand washing health awareness program involved a first workshop which was an overview of why it is important to wash with soap and water. The focus was on the path of transmission of illness and the steps needed to prevent the transmission of illness. Large posters depicting this information were used and a thorough hand washing demonstration took place. Students and their parents or other family members attended.

The second session was for students only and focused on other hygiene measures, revising the first session as well as reinforcing correct hand washing and demonstrating hand washing with ash and water if soap isn’t available.

The third workshop was a poster drawing competition which enabled the students to make beautiful posters with a hand washing health message. First, second, third and special mention prizes were chosen with great difficulty as all the posters were very beautiful and well thought out.

And finally the fourth and final session of this phase of the hand washing awareness program took place where three dramas were performed by the students, poster drawing prizes were presented and certificates of attendance and gifts were awarded.

The students spent hours enthusiastically rehearsing the dramas for the final performance after school and also practiced and remembered their dialogue in their own time.

The first drama emphasized the importance of washing with soap and water and used the idea that if you are unwell you are unable to play the sports you like with your friends. Three boys were playing cricket and one boy couldn’t catch the ball because he had a painful eye with conjunctivitis. He fell to the ground in a spectacular fashion as he leapt to take the catch. Meanwhile, three girls were playing hopscotch and one girl doubled over in pain with cramps from diarrhoea. The students that were healthy then demonstrated correct hand washing with soap and water to those who were unwell explaining why it was important.

The second drama looked at food preparation and hand washing. The students acted as two family groups, mother, father and child, living beside each other. One healthy family and one unhealthy family, one mother preparing food in a safe way by washing hands, covering food and cooking at high temperatures and the other mother not washing her hands or preparing food correctly. Additionally, the unhealthy mothers attending to her sick child without any focus on hygiene and illness transmission. When the two husbands returned home from work the two families discussed health and illness prevention and the unhealthy family agreed to try washing with soap and water and taking care in food preparation. From the photos you will see that a young child from the audience was fascinated by what was happening and joined this drama.

The third drama showed the dangers of eating open food. A very funny jal muri seller was coughing and spitting over the food and the student who bought food from him was ill the very next day. Dr Jahid and Sister Sumi were played very well by the students giving health advice and reminding the students of the dangers of eating unsafe food.

All the students put a great deal of effort into preparing for the drama and will be able to use their drama skills and knowledge to help to educate the rest of the students in the school around illness prevention through hand washing with soap and water. It is planned that the thirty students who have taken part in the intensive hand washing health awareness program will be involved, together with the Health Care Centre staff, in educating and raising awareness throughout the rest of the school.

The prize winning posters were chosen because they included many of the ideas discussed during the program such as use a hygienic toilet, drink boiled water, cook food at high temperature, cover food, wash your hands with soap and water, dust and dirt contains bacteria, illness that can result from not washing hands with soap and water include diarrhoea, conjunctivitis, various skin problems and respiratory problems like coughs and colds. Original ideas where also rewarded. But overall it was very nice to see the care and effort that all students had put into their posters.

Education and awareness activities will continue throughout the school and the community using the thirty students as agents of change. Monitoring and evaluation activities will also continue so that there is evidence that the program has had an impact. The Health Care Centre staffs are also in the process of preparing a basic Nutrition Awareness Programme as part of the next major campaign.

FUNDRAISERS OF THE WEEK 9

Thanks to the sympathy of The Dhaka Project friends around and in Dubai who feel enthusiastic at helping the most in need, our mezzanine has stored lots of donations to be either sent to the field in Dhaka or to be sold in the store allowing our volunteers to fundraise through Garage Sales.
The Friday Garage Sales along the last month had the following results:

• 13th, March, Dhs 595,00 - Solange and Nurul
• 20th, March, Dhs 840,00 - Solange and Nurul
• 27th, March, Dhs 430,00 - Solange and Nurul
• 3rd, April, Dhs 146,00 - Solange, Nurul and his friend.
• 10th, April, Dhs 1549,00 - Nurul and Solange for some time.
  

Also there have been some expenses, some of them with Nurul's transport, Dhs 200,00 . The final result is an appreciable amount!
During the ohter days of the month and while managing her own life, Solange also took care of all the tidiness in the store, organizing the huge number of donaitons in shelves and wheeled boxes; a great work done by Solange as usual... she hired some help from 5 ladies against a few pieces yielded from the donations and all have transformed a big chaos in a store with the aspect as shown in the pictures. Also some ladies of the Brasilian Team have given a hand sorting the items to the respective boxes.
Our grateful thanks to Nurul's friend and the Brazilian Team ladies who have given some help.
And The Dhaka Project is grateful once again to its rescued slum dweller, Nurul, always present in the sales, and to Solange, the permanent store keeper.
Both keep highly commited with their hard work to help kids improve their future life.
Thanks to all on behalf of The Dhaka Project kids !!!

Arte Souk on March 13, 2009

On the second Friday of March 09, The Dhaka Project put up a garage sale for charity at the Arte Souk which was held at the Times Square shopping mall on Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai. It was a very intersting and artistic environment to showcase TDP's drive to bring respect and culture to the slums of Dhaka.
We thank Solange Piñeiro, Nurul Islam and Tanvir Shah who managed the TDP stall at the fundraiser for donating their time for this cause.
We would also like to thank Miriam Walsh and Paul Townsend for their generosity in allowing us to set up the stall at half the official price.
In the spirit of transparency, the financial details were:
Charity Sales: Dhs 645,00
Cost of space: Dhs100,00
Nurul's (volunteer) snack: Dhs 25,00
Net Amount raised for TDP: Dhs 520
We urge you to support the Arte Souk; for more details on the souk, please visit: www.arte.ae

THIS IS WHY WE TRUST IN THE HUMAN KIND !

After making a reference to Al Diyafah School, it's the turn to make another heartfelt mention to all individual donors who responded to our appeal and promised their donations to support us with health expenses to rescue Fatema, what hasn't unfortunately been possible spite of all the efforts done.
So, our children address their heartful thanks to all, having the Dhaka team arranged to take the following picture dedicated to all who made their donations, as below...

• Teresa Brighton - Dubai - Dhs 500
• Eileen Taylor - Dubai - Dhs 500
• Rafael Casalino - Dubai - Dhs 500
• Pedro Barata - Lisbon - Eur 120
• Humayun Jameel - Dubai - Dhs 500
• Patrick Bridget - Dubai - Dhs 500
• Manuel and Solange Piñeiro - Dubai - Dhs 500 and all the workload they had taking the donations from the others
• Marcelo Peixoto - Dubai - Dhs 500
• Uschi Irani - Dubai - Dhs 500
• 2 Anonymous Donors - Abu Dhabi - Dhs 1000

More than a gift, these donors are an encouragement to us, through their kind and touching response in a hard time, and we wish to show our deep gratitude to all on behalf of The Dhaka Project children !!!

Get Well Soon - Richard

This is for you Richard

Vaccination of Hepatitis B

The Dhaka Project is very vigilant about vaccinating the children. We try to ensure that every child is properly vaccinated to prohibit any sort of inconvenience in their path to a brighter future. Few days back The Dhaka Project hold the vaccination program of Hepatitis B Booster Dose. One year from now The Dhaka Project gave all its children the vaccination of Hepatitis B and now a booster dose was given under careful monitoring of Dr. Jahid Hossain, Medical in charge. We try our best to behold the reputation of The Dhaka Project as it was right from the beginning when our Founder, Maria Conceicao founded the project. As a contribution to such reputation we try to ensure proper health condition of the children by providing medical facilities together with appropriate vaccination

The Dhaka Project is very vigilant about vaccinating the children. We try to ensure that every child is properly vaccinated to prohibit any sort of inconvenience in their path to a brighter future. Few days back The Dhaka Project hold the vaccination program of Hepatitis B booster dose. One year from now The Dhaka Project gave all its children the vaccination of Hepatitis B and now a booster dose was given under careful monitoring of Dr. Jahid Hossain, Medical in charge. We try our best to behold the reputation of The Dhaka Project as it was right from the beginning when our Founder, Maria Conceicao founded the project. As a contribution to such reputation we try to ensure proper health condition of the children by providing medical facilities together with appropriate vaccinatio.