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.