BRAC School, Mirpur

Visited a school run by BRAC, the country's largest NGO. Saw class 1 and class 3, children aged 8-10. Parents’ occupations include rickshaw wallahs, day labourers including construction. Children’s work: boys often work in handicrafts (outside of house); girls work in home. Class runs for 4 hours per day in 2 shifts. There are about 36 children in each class. Children study Bangla, maths, English, social studies and also spend time dancing and singing. There are no fees and everything (books, pencils etc) is provided for free. The classes were noticeably free of repetition and children's work was up on display on the walls.

As I was about to leave they said the children would like to talk to me. In an awkward exchange the children took turns to stand up and ask me questions. One asked 'Any advice for us?' - I said 'Well erm you should probably study hard,' feeling a bit hypocritical. I asked the children if they liked school and they all said yes loudly. I asked what they liked /least/ about school. This made them glance around nervously and no one replied until the teacher picked one student to stand up and say something. But her reply was 'Nothing - everything is very good'. I asked the children what they wanted to be when they were older. A couple of girls said 'teacher' so I asked, who-all wants to be a teacher? Nearly all of the girls and a couple of the boys stood up. The remaining children wanted to be doctors, engineers or policemen. Apparently none of them were interested in going in to business or making money.

Afterwards visited some of the houses of the children's parents. This was by far the worst slum I have seen, claustrophobic, hot and full of stove fumes, with flimsy shacks being built literally on top of each other and only very narrow, muddy corridors between them.

River trip

Went boating with some Dhaka-ite friends, five of us squeezing into a tiny CNG taxi to get down to the river. Waiting at the dock, we gathered a good audience as usual. The river is fascinating and it was fun at first, but we were unpleasantly close to the sewage-smelling water.

Bashbari

Visited this drop-in centre for working children in Bashbari, Mohammadpur. It offers non-formal education and facilities like washrooms, lockers, health information, counselling, medical check-ups, games, tv, savings accounts. They are also referred to other places for free health services and vocational training. One of the children here is already a celebrity having featured in a Sport Relief documentary. Most of their families have a total income between Tk. 2100-4000 (£16-30); but around a quarter were in the Tk. 1000-2000 range (£7-£15). The children themselves earn anything between Tk. 10 and Tk. 100 per day (between 8p and 80p) working as rubbish collectors, part-time domestic helpers, and porters. According to the centre's staff, everyone living in this community is part of the 'hardcore poor' and none of them use the two government schools that are nearby, mainly because they rely on the children's incomes, but also because of costs like uniforms and tuition fees. This project has a pragmatic stance of giving the children basic reading and writing skills, together with various other services, rather than trying to get them into government schools.

The game shown here is called carrom and involves using little discs to tap other little discs into holes on a board.