SPONSORSHIPS AND DONATIONS

Sponsorship from Singaporean Women's Group
We feel grateful to the Singaporean Women's Group who decided to sponsor two of our kids for one year.
To perform this kind gesture we have been handed 1,200.00 AED through our volunteer Marcelo Taborda, a very important helping hand to our work, come from a group who have helped us at least once before .
Thanks in particular to Natasha Aswani and Aini Yunus. Also great thanks to the Singaporean Women's Group in general for this precious support given to the children under our care !

Birthday donation from Malou.
Also we got a beautiful donation from a very young girl, Malou, who is repeating her gesture of handing her birthday gifts to The Dhaka Project children with the help of her mum Uschi.
We are talking about a girl who recently celebrated her 5th anniversary and has come forward to help us for the second time.She asked her friends to bring some gift in funds at their choice to The Dhaka Project children instead of bringing presents to her,... and she collected 3,445.00 AED, a sum that made us be very happy, and so was she when handing it in Maria's hands.
Our gratitude is immense to this little girl Malou, and we wish to say a tremendous thank you for her kindness, on behalf of ou children!

Donation from Arunas Salon
We've had donations from our great supporters, Arunas, who donated 200.00 AED, and Grace who works for Arunas and made a donation of 100.00 TK. Let's remark that both have once been in Dhaka where they lent an important helping hand with items and training skills to set up this very beautiful beauty salon in the picture.
Huge thanks to both Arunas and Grace !!!

Donation in Dhaka
An anonymous donor was happy to contribute with 30 bars of soap and 72 toothbrushes !
Great ! A very nice help towards the hygiene of our students!
Thanks a lot to this anonymous soul for his/her kindness !!!

ATHLETAE CRISTI GROUP - THANKS ONCE AGAIN !

The Athletae Christi Group in Dubai, are supporting The Dhaka Project for the second time in a short period of time, with a precious donation in last December as published by that time in this blog and with a big sponsorship this time.
This action has been kindly coordinated by two members of the group, Freddy and Karla Becker, and counted once again with the high commitment of Lorena Serrano. They arranged a meeting with Marcelo Taborda who made a presentation and explained the project's objectives to the Athletae Christi members.And after the presentation they decided to sponsor 15 children for one year, having delivered the amount of 9,000.00 AED for that purpose.
It's delightful to have a sponsorship that will help a numerous group of children from among those who are not sponsored yet and who will begin to benefit of a consistent help.
The team feels grateful for the Athletae Christi Members' kindness and precious help, and wishes to express it on behalf of the kids under the care of The Dhaka Project !!!

SHARANIS SUPPORTS THE DHAKA PROJECT

The Sharanis Wellness SPA in Abu Dhabi has kindly offered their help to The Dhaka Project.
Sharanis Wellness is specialized in skin and body therapy with the most advanced techiques where you can enjoy providing health to your body through a variety of announced services and at the same time feel the benefit of helping a worthy cause... the cause of the poorest children at The Dhaka Project.
They will be running a fund raising event, two Walking Groups, that will take place on 17th January, at the Corniche in Abu Dhabi at 5 PM , and at Raha International School, Khalifa City A , on behalf of The Dhaka Project.
People will be able to help by acquiring Sharanis Walking Vests and join the event. All the proceeds will go towards the children at The Dhaka Project. It's a good way of making the difference.
More detailed information can be found in Sharanis website under News & Events.
From our side we wish to express a big thanks to Sharanis Welness SPA, specially to Sharon Moore, the Managing Director, on behalf of our children and for the kindness shown towards them on creating this wonderful event !!!

THE DHAKA PROJECT SAYS THANK YOU TO RAAHI !

Raahi is a high sponsor of The Dhaka Project who is giving his support behind the scenes to so many children...
And in a recent past he made a huge donation to the project; a donation of 30,000.00 Dirhams, adding 30,000.00 in November and yet more 30,000.00 in December, to help the monthly running costs, that will be of huge impact on the project's life.
And for sure, our children wish at least once to show their gratitude to Raahi for this tremendous donation presenting him with the picture below.Thanks a lot to Raahi for this donation on behalf of the children under the care of The Dhaka Project !!!

ENTHUSIASM AT JUTEKOMPANIET !

Jutekompaniet is a company who are investing in Bangladesh and at the same time sponsoring The Dhaka Project as it can be read in a recent entry in this blog.
They just started and are feeling enthusiastic about the results they are getting in the Norwegian city of Drammen, through the business they developed by producing Bangladeshi jute bags and exporting them to the Norwegian market. These bags will appear with a tag describing The Dhaka Project in Norwegian language (as in the picture beside) and in many cases with a logo of the shops that acquired the bags.
The management team at Jutekompaniet also informed us that Norwegian people are very positive to the fact they are supporting The Dhaka Project when buying these bags, feeling heartily connected with the cause of the poorest.
A newspaper in Drammen published an article about Jutekompaniet mentioning that they are supporting TDP as in the link, http://dt.no/article/20081115/NYHET/665604486# with the title "Bag med samvittighet" that means "Bag with consciousness", and mentioning the environmentally friendly jute material and that it is a means of showing Drammen a little to the world.
They finalize the article with the sentence, "Foruten en miljøvennlig produksjon vil ti prosent av overskuddet gå til Dhaka Project i Bangladesh til arbeid mot fattigdommen i slummen i Dhaka." that means, "In addition to an environmentally production, ten percent of the profit will go to Dhaka Project in Bangladesh to the work against poverty in the slums in Dhaka."
And we at The Dhaka Project wish to express a tremendous thank you to Jutekompaniet for their supportive kindness as well as to Norwegian people in Drammen.

Takk Jutekompaniet. Takk folk i Drammen! :)

NEW SPONSOR, HOLIDAY GARAGE SALE AND MUCH MORE !

During the last hours, Maria has run a garage sale, just before preparing the last things to leave and take the results with her to the children. In this morning she sold items worth of 1020 Dirhams... in a wink !

And yesterday has been a very busy day to Maria and Luiz Ogg!

Luiz has been of extreme help once again ! At one minute notice he drove Maria to Katrina's house...
Why? Katrina Dow is a Cabin Crew Member who decided to sponsor a child, Shomola, at The Dhaka Project, and Maria/Luis went there to collect the money... 500 Dirhams!

Then Luiz drove to Gif Village so that Maria could buy some interactive toys to stimulate our children... and doing the shopping they got to the cashier...

...and Maria comments, "He surprised me on cash point paying for all these amazing toys that I am sure will amaze and bow wow the kids since they always received second hand toys not working as they should ... Wanted to pamper the kids but... Luiz did the deed ...they're all loads of toys .. fitting my cabin bag and my hand baggage"

Then Luiz toke Maria to CBC and from her words, "...there are not words to explain the amount of donations dropped there in CBC by Cabin Crew, a mountain is a under statement ... Luiz once again helped me loading his car and drove me back to my place ..we are truly overwhelmed by the generosity of the crew ..." you can guess how impressed she felt.
This task toke more than 3 hours and a half...

... "And more with the willingness of Luiz Ogg to go back forwards in Dubai to help us ...every time he meets me, he truly gets traumatized by the amount of work giving, yet never fails to answer one of my SOS calls ."
And "...I am truly lucky for he is driving me to the airport tomorrow helping me with all the huge amounts of baggage I am taking..." , says Maria.

Really, there are no enough words to express how grateful The Dhaka Project should be to Maria, Cabin Crew Members who have gone beyond the theoretically possible, the team in Dubai who work tirelessly...
And a big THANK YOU to Kristina. She is sponsoring Shomola, a little child who is under our care in the nursery!

CHILD IN DANGER !

Mainuddin needs immediate surgery, he is suffering from Rectal Prolapse. The total cost for the operation would be 30,000 Taka. ($430 USD approximately)

Will someone come forward to help this little kid ?

Mainuddin is a nursery student at the The Dhaka Project. At the age of 3 nothing could get worse than this. Mainuddin’s father, Abdul Kalam, passed away a few years ago.

Mainuddin’s mother, Fatema, works as a cleaner in The Dhaka Project. She is the only person who earns a very small amount of money for the family.
In this circumstance, they can't afford the surgery cost.
And Mainuddin’s condition is getting worse day by day!
Before it's too late we should do something.

Else we might lose him!!!

DOUBLE GENEROSITY !

Sponsoring Shohag and making a donation...
This strong feeling of solidarity comes from Jo Perret.
Jo has been managing to come along to stay for a few days as a volunteer in Dhaka, but it isn't possible due to personal problems.
So she decided to donate her flight tickets' money on behalf of the kids of The Dhaka Project. This wonderful donation will be a helpful gift that is going straight to medicine.
But there is more...
Also It's Jo Perret who is going to sponsor Shohag, the boy who has got alone after his brother-in-law's death in a recent accident, and who we pleaded for a sponsor to, in the first days of June. This represents a valuable gift, that relieves the Project and from it Shohag learns that spite of having no local family helping him to be whatever it be, there is a good hearted human being from the overseas who cares and feels keen on keeping him studying fully concentrated towards his goal.
We wish this to be a much rewarding relationship along the time.
Thanks a lot to Jo Perret on behalf of The Dhaka Project Kids and Shohag in particular, with our best wishes.

A Thought Piece from Richard - Can Education be Sustainable?

When I first saw The Dhaka Project, I was amazed by what I saw (and to be honest I still am today). But I couldn’t help but think how is this all sustainable? This worrying thought is what led me to eventually offer the team, and more importantly the kids, my time and services here.

The smiles on the kid’s faces, the thirst and desire that they have to learn is not what dragged me back to Bangladesh, rather it was the thought of these kids losing these benefits and liberties granted through education with The Dhaka Project; benefits and liberties that we in the developed world take for granted. I was afraid that if one large sponsor pulled out of The Dhaka Project these kids would be forced back into the unfortunate circumstances of child marriages, garment work, rickshaw pulling, day labouring or begging.

The more I thought about it, the more it got to me. How can we make education sustainable? You cannot give kids loans, nor can you exploit them to do work to pay for their education. It really began to annoy me – Why isn’t the government doing more? Should corporations be more responsible, if so how do we make them? Why don’t the rich Bangladeshis care? I even read a book on how the US has spent $3 Billion on the wars in the Middle East – thinking “that could school 2 million Bangladeshis for their entire schooling.”

Instead of getting caught up in who was responsible, I began thinking about how and why I got a free education in Australia. My parents (and now I) pay taxes to provide benefits to our community – with an educated society obviously being one of those benefits. So therefore, as a part of belonging to that community and paying taxes, I got a free education. With the belief that an investment into my education would be recouped by the community once I was educated, through both financial means (taxes) and social means.

Now I don’t need to waste more blog space saying what I think about the Bangladesh Government, but it was clear who I think is the major contributor to 56 million kids under the age of 15 not receiving a reasonable education here. But again, I have to look past who is to blame and try and work out how education can become sustainable in this unfortunate environment. Even if the government would be capable of organizing schooling for that many children, who would pay for 2/5ths of their population to be schooled? The other 3/5ths are definitely not earning enough to support schooling 56 million through taxes.

That’s where it hit me – and I finally worked out how The Dhaka Project is sustainable.

We are all part of a wider global community, just because boundaries and governments divide us into groups, we are still part of a global community. Donating to a cause like The Dhaka Project is just like paying an optional global tax; it is a payment to make a better and more prosperous global community.

In my view there is no need to focus on making this project sustainable today, nor is there any problem that it is run purely on charitable donations. Education should be a right, just because developing countries’ governments are corrupt and unable to give these kids an education doesn’t mean that we in the developed countries should give up on these kids.

Whilst we will not see distinct and obvious sustainable benefits straight away – they will happen. We have to be comfortable knowing that we are investing in tomorrows change.

SPONSORSHIP RENEWAL

Sponsors don't forget the kids who they help!
The messages exchanged with Virginia are a true example of that.

Virginia La Torre Jeker has emailed us to remember us that their sponsorship period was coming to an end and therefore they wished to renew it.
But as we took a few days to reply, due to the endless things to do added to day to day work for a living, she didn't give up and half a month later she insisted, (well done!), writing us again to know how to do it.
And quickly she transferred the amount to continue sponsoring "their" two children for a full year of education... 300 US Dollars!!!

On behalf of the children at The Dhaka Project, we gratefully say a thank you so much to Virginia for not permitting us to forget and above all for this precious and continuous help!