Found my volunteer role in Bangladesh

I have had a couple of months in Dhaka to find my feet, relax and to have a good look around.  I am starting to get bored...  although a side trip to Shanghai was interesting I am now ready to do more than that.

Well luck is on my side, when we got back from Shanghai I was invited to join some of the teachers at Brian's school to visit a local school called Solmaid that the CEO and a few others from the school have supported to get up and running.  It is a short walk from their school over small, muddy lanes full of very local shops.  I doubt many foreigners would ever venture there except to visit the little school hidden away in these lanes.  Will try to post some photos another time as I didn't think to take any on this walk.

We got to a walled courtyard and entered the school grounds, actually this is a converted house that they rent, using three rooms as school rooms.  The courtyard has a beautiful and colourful mural decorating it that was done by the kids with the help of a rickshaw painter/artist.  Inside the school there were about 30 students at 4.30 pm (one class was absent at the time).  The school has three shifts of children each day so that they can educate about 150.  These children are what some call ''street kids''.  They come from very poor parents who earn less than 6000 taka per month, or about $88 Australian.  They would normally never have the opportunity to go to school.  These kids are beautiful, lively and so polite...

The principal and local teachers were teaching in a local christian school but as Muslims they were unhappy about the bible being the focal point of children's learning and wanted to set up a community school of their own with a local curriculum.   The CEO of Brian's school and a few other teachers helped them to do this.  The school has now been running for two years and provides uniforms, food (via money donated by an Australian Rotary club) and of course good education.   This costs approximately $300 US per child per year which they raise from donations.

I loved this school and its philosophy and so when the CEO said that he needed some help to take over the administration role that he had be providing I put up my hand.  I am off to Bangkok tomorrow, but when I return I will see what that involves and this will be my volunteer work in Dhaka.  I am very excited as this is such an amazing venture providing the poorest of the poor with educational opportunity who would never get it otherwise.

You can check out the rather basic webpage if you want to know more about this school.   https://www.scsdhaka.com

It has been raining a lot here so my walking around has been a little limited of late but am still getting out and about and am just about to head off to the local coffee shop for my occasional coffee fix.

Brian flies out today to take a group of school children to a lovely island - Tioman - in Malaysia, clearly these are not the kids of the poorest of the poor, but the richest of the rich (very rich).  I met some of them yesterday when I visited Brian's classroom when I went to a meeting about Solmaid school and actually they are lovely, confident, smart kids, so hopefully the school is able to instill some strong positive values in these kids as they will be Bangladeshi leaders in the future.   When Brian suggested to one of them that he could be Prime Minister, he said no he couldn't as he wasn't corrupt enough!

Off to Bangkok tomorrow myself and will be going by overnight sleeper/bus then boat to an island called Koh Tau for three nights of lazing around, snorkelling and exploring before going back to Bangkok to join Brian on his way back from Tioman Island.   What a life we are leading!!!

The blog is a bit light on photos this week, so here is one from my wanderings. Health and Safety regulations don't apply here, check out the guy riding on the top of the truck, they weld in sunglasses and jandals (thongs for my Aussie friends), window washers hang from tall buildings sitting on bamboo rods held together by ropes like a makeshift ladder, buses do not stop, if you want to get on the bus slows down a little for you and you run and jump and generally hang half in and half out as the bus is packed:

I hope to be able to blog from Thailand but if not will be back in a few weeks...