Free-of-cost School for Underprivileged Children

Bonding Between Sponsor Parent and Daughters

Ms. Sanjida wanted to help change the life of a child, and she wouldn’t exchange the feeling of pure gratefulness and friendship her children in JAAGO had given back to her for anything in the world. Sanjida is from the U.K and has been supporting JAAGO Rayer bazar school’s students Kajol and Rumpa for over a year for their education.
Sanjida works as the Director of a consulting company in Surrey, U.K during the day, takes care of her household at night, and even then manages to dedicate time for her life’s holy grail – helping underprivileged children stand up on their own two feet. While it’s true that a tiny portion of our earnings (USD 20 / month) help these kids weave their dreams, the love and bonding Sanjida and Rumpa and Kajol feel for each other is something that money can’t buy. As Rumpa and Kajol’s well-wisher / sponsor parent, Sanjida wants to see the girls become such human beings so that when they grow up, they also learn to give to people and transform the community in which they live.

Creativity is Intelligence having Fun

A well-wisher, Mr. Wilkie along with his daughter Jessica and our strong supporter Faiyaz Ahmed Khan joined in with our kids of JAAGO Foundation, Korail, Banani branch to design some T-shirts. JAAGO students spent a remarkable time painting on their T-shirt with fun and bright colors. Try new things are always exciting and challenging for every child. This session has helped the students to play with their imagination and creativity.

Workshop by Mozilla Firefox

Every day we are moving out of the narrow domain of the “geek” to the broader world. In recent years, web development and programming have started to percolate into the general perception of people. It hasn’t become popular “just because”. There is a growing realization that, knowing web development and programming is essential; especially for the growing children as it’s the basic step towards learning technology.

Since JAAGO Foundation is certain of and has been facilitating quality education through technology by the unique idea of “online schooling”; Ed Tech has become an integral part of our learning. And to move beyond, we inspire our children to learn by making. Allowing them to think technology as a tool for creativity rather making it a critical skill, perhaps helping them to understand the building blocks of web.

With the help of “Webmaker” a project of Mozilla who believes that, innovation can come from anyone and are dedicated to spread web-education to every single corner of the society; JAAGO kids have advanced to the future world of technology. Kids excitedly made their own apps, web accounts and shared the knowledge of creating web without limits. This event was just a gateway, a foundation that‘ll help the kids to build anything upon it.

Annual Iftar Evening

Ramdan is the holy and a pious month for the Muslims. This is the month in which we not only experience the hardship the poor people faces, but we also build a bond of humanity with them. Every year JAAGO Foundation organizes an annual Iftar for their students and their respective sponsors, connecting the sponsors and the beneficiaries. Sponsors sit with their sponsored child and exchange their gratitude to each other. A special bond is always visible in that round table. During the annual Iftar, the supporters of the Foundation does not only travel to the past seeing how JAAGO grew, but a glimpse of the future is also made known.

Thank You

JAAGO is a family. And we are struggling hard to keep our bond stronger. We recently have strengthened our Sponsor a Child program to support all the new students we are going to accommodate in the coming session. We will open up two new branches this July and we need sponsors to support their education. A few minutes’ look into our website and a little bit contribution might make a huge difference in their lives. JAAGO is deeply thankful all those generous sponsors who have been supporting us morally and through donation. We really thank you all for every benevolent contribution that helped us reach education to the many underprivileged kids in Bangladesh.

Links:

• Annual Iftar of JAAGO

The JAAGO Journey

Since 2007 JAAGO Foundation has been working hard to provide high-quality, free-of-cost education to the underprivileged children of Bangladesh. With the help of generous supporters like yourself, JAAGO Foundation has recently celebrated its 7^th Year Anniversary and in these short seven years, we have been able to challenge social norms and provide impoverished children the opportunity to learn.

 In just seven years JAAGO Foundation has grown from one small classroom with just 17 students, one teacher and a white board; to 1,400 students, 70 teachers and eight schools.

Your kindness and generosity has been invaluable in helping us to achieve these milestones and we truly appreciate the support that you provide to help the children of Bangladesh break the poverty cycle and build a brighter future.

We would like to take this opportunity not only to thank you for your support, but also to tell you exactly how your donations have helped and where they have been used…

JAAGO never stops

In Bangladesh 33 million children still live below the poverty line and JAAGO Foundation will not stop until we achieve an illiteracy-free Bangladesh. In November 2014, with the support of generous Global Giving donations, JAAGO Foundation will open the doors of six more schools throughout Bangladesh; providing the opportunity to quality, free-of-cost education to a further 600 children, and employment and training for a total of 88 teachers.

Celebrating Student Success

As previously mentioned JAAGO Foundation recently celebrated its 7th Year Anniversary and to mark the occasion teachers, students and staff collectively organised a vibrant cultural performance held at the Dhaka National Museum Auditorium.

JAAGO teachers and volunteers worked together to plan, choreograph and teach students various performances to celebrate the outstanding achievements of our students and important milestones for JAAGO Foundation.

A particular highlight of the event involved the student’s re-enactment of the JAAGO journey -where students theatrically interpreted the obstacles and challenges that JAAGO Foundation has faced, and revelled in how together we have triumphed. Furthermore the reception student’s sparkling rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in a contemporary ballet style delighted attendees, of whom special guests included the Primary & Mass Education Minister and British High Commissioner.

The evening concluded with JAAGO students waving flags high in the sky celebrating not only the academic achievements of the 100 JAAGO students graduating with flying colours, but also the collective accomplishments of JAAGO Foundation in breaking the cycle of poverty and building a brighter future for Bangladesh.

Life lessons for JAAGO students

A mother’s love
On 11^th May 2014 JAAGO Foundation celebrated Mother’s Day for the first time, and provided students with the opportunity to reflect on how their mothers positively influence their lives. Our teachers organised a day for students to reflect on all of the support that their mother’s provide them – from cooking their dinner and cleaning their uniform, to waking them up and getting them to school.

JAAGO students drew pictures of how their mothers support them, learnt to appreciate this support and also made cards for their mothers to thank them on this special day.

As well as teaching students this appreciation, JAAGO Foundation is also very proud to be able to support student’s mothers in providing training and employment in our Sewing Centre. To date JAAGO Foundation has provided training to 460 parents and continues to work hard to advocate for women’s rights and empowerment.  

“The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom”
- Henry Ward Beecher

Getting creative
At JAAGO Foundation we strongly encourage our student’s creativity and imagination, and focus on creating a playful and fun learning environment. This is because our students regularly face difficulties in attending school as many of their peers are unable to attend and there is often pressure to earn a living for their family. This has resulted in high drop-out rates in Bangladesh, with 33% of children failing to complete primary education. JAAGO is working hard to combat this, and one means of doing so is by focusing teaching techniques on rhymes, colouring in and interactive content to create the best learning environment for our students.

Every week a JAAGO teacher hosts a craft workshop in our Banani Branch with students aged 4 to 5 years. The day involves teaching students collage techniques, paper chains and how to recycle materials in a creative way. JAAGO students produce birthday cards, fans, ice cream cups and pen holders; with all students having a fantastic day. The workshop provides students an opportunity to stimulate their creative minds and understand the importance of recycling.

“Our students were elated to know that they could create interesting things from used bottles and waste paper! The students have become much more interested in their studies after this assignment, and now understand the advantages of team-working.  We're surprised to see how involved the kids have become because of this assignment!  All by themselves, they've made dolls, kites, Eid cards and birthday cards with just clay and paper!” -  Mst. Nasrin Afroz Nahida, Reception Teacher 

What your support means to JAAGO

JAAGO Foundation is a small but very special organisation, growing rapidly every day. Without the support of generous individuals like yourself, the impoverished children of Bangladesh would have no access to education and thus the poverty cycle would continue.

You are helping our students to break this cycle and build a brighter future. We send you our heartfelt thanks for your continued support and look forward to bringing you more exciting news in our next report.