By Morshedul Islam | Project Leader
What is dream? Is it what occurs in our mind during sleep?
No, it is not! At least not to the children of JAAGO Foundation, who know the word dream with a different connotation. To them, dream is something that pushes them to work hard and engage in chasing what they desire to achieve in life. It is what doesn’t let them sleep idly. These children, who are now the dreamers, used to be street urchins or work as child labors until JAAGO happened to them. JAAGO is what has made them start dreaming differently for themselves, their families, and the nation through providing them with cost free quality education. It has currently 11500 dreamers who have 11500 different stories.
How JAAGO change lives!
Sohel
Student of Standard 10.
Sohel is one of the dreamers, who is studying in Standard 10 at JAAGO Foundation School Rayer Bazar Branch. A farmer’s son, who lost his father at the age of 9 and used to be a house-boy, dreams to be a scientist and work at NASA. In Sohel’s words about his earlier days, “My father was a farmer and poverty was part of my daily life, I neither had a dream nor a purpose to live. At the age of 9, when I was supposed to get love and affection from my parents; my father passed away and tragedy came into my life. My life was changed. When I was supposed to study, I had to leave my home for work in other’s house and earn bread for my family. When I was supposed to get bat for play, a broom was given to me for sweeping the house. When I was supposed to get instruction on my study, I got direction on how to wash a bathroom.”
Like many underprivileged children, Sohel was craving for schooling but this was a day dream for him. He says,” After work when I used to stand by the window, seeing children going to schools in their uniform I always wished to be in their place and study. So I requested my owner to get me admitted at a school. But there was no suitable school for me, everyone asked for 2000, 4000, taka as school fees but my salary was ¼ of it. And, none wanted to pay the extra amount for me. Then I started looking for a school, which would provide free education.”
Sohel’s life entered to a transitional phase when he got admitted at JAAGO Foundation’s school. JAAGO is precious word to him, as he says, “When I was looking for free school for me, suddenly like a dream, I heard about JAAGO. So, I went to JAAGO with my owner’s daughter. When she heard that its free here, she got me admitted and a new chapter of my life was open. If JAAGO was not there, I would remain a household worker. JAAGO has given me a new dream, taught me to dream big to achieve it. Now, I have a dream and chosen the way of my life. I want to be a scientist and work at NASA. I will always remain grateful to JAAGO. I don’t want to be rich but a man with knowledge. And that is what JAAGO teaches us. Love you JAAGO.”
Many children like Sohel are moving here and there and living miserable life. JAAGO, in its endeavor, seeks to bring every one of them under the light of quality education which would make them dreamers, equip with skills, make employable and empower financially. This would ultimately make Bangladesh how we dream it to be. JAAGO, being a non-profit organization, has been working with this vision since the inception of its journey. It wants to make more dreamers like Sohel and help them realize their dreams by providing comprehensive quality education.
Spelling Bee Competition
JAAGO believes that language efficiency is indispensable for the students to comprehend the lessons and acquire communicative skills. As it has been providing international standard quality education to its students with the aim to make them competent for competition both in national and global levels, permeating language proficiency is always a priority. JAAGO organized Bangla and English Spelling Competition during the 3rd quarter of the year to sharpen students’ sense of spelling for the first time. Children from Cl-1 to Cl-4 participated in the competition based on their Texts (high frequency words). There were total three rounds. All students of each class participated in the Word Dictation competition on primary round. After the other two rounds, three winners were selected from each class. Event of this kind was held in JAAGO for the first time. Having seen its prospects, the school administration wishes to expand the competition from next year, where the students of 13 schools will compete with their classmates. Competitions will also take place both in intra and inter school levels.
A day dedicated for our Teachers!
Respect for the elders and endearment for the youngers is a universal socializing practice encouraged in all ideologies and civilizations. Students of JAAGO are taught such practices, respecting the teachers and parents along with all the elders, so that they can be groomed as the best social beings regardless of their family backgrounds. These values are included in the lesson plannings of the teachers. Our students love their teachers with immense respects. Because, they are not merely the mentors to the children but the idols and makers of their dreams, who hold them with much needed care and groom in the friendliest way.
Moreover, JAAGO’s teachers have always been a key integral part of its march to cater to the educational needs of the children from underprivileged and impoverished background, which is why the administration and students feel the teachers are special. They celebrated the last Techers’ Day very ostentatiously by arranging programs where the students handed over cards to the teachers they made for conveying their respect, gratitude, and wishes. All the students made cards but they could not meet all their teachers in person, as 10 of 13 JAAGO schools are online. The online school students chatted with the teachers and wished them via video-conference. They also gave the “thank you cards” to the class facilitators in the school end. JAAGO Foundation’s first school, Rayerbazar school, is located nearby the online teachers’ center. Students of this school planned to surprise the online teachers as they were missing physical presence of their immediate students, which they executed on that day. Seeing the enthusiasm among students, school management made video messages to convey their wishes and to all the teachers.
Classroom Marketing
JAAGO believes in the proverb, ‘industry is the mother of good luck and prosperity.’ It gives huge emphasis on disseminating proneness among the students to be hardworking, disciplined, and attentive to study. These are the indispensable personal attributes one needs to have to be successful in life by acquiring skills and using them. Since JAAGO’s students come from different backgrounds; some with trauma of losing parents, memories of heavy torture on mother or even abuses at early age, it has to adapt multifold strategies to grow them with intelligence and sensibilities,and make them attentive in classroom.
Moreover, the aim of JAAGO is to break the cycle of poverty through education, which cannot be realized if students do not become equipped with skills to empower themselves both morally and financially receiving quality education at its schools. From these necessities, JAAGO has introduced the concept of classroom marketing to make the children passionate about achieving their targets, patient to work hard, discipline to act accordingly. The idea denotes that the students will buy things from the market set in classroom by the teachers in exchange of the stars they achieve through their class performances and homeworks. It also helps them become more disciplined and attentive to complete their homeworks regularly, as they are motivated with the more stars you earn the more favorite educational materials you will be able to buy.. As part of that initiative, an event of classroom marketing was arranged in the 3rd quarter of this year. Students enjoyed purchasing pens, pencils, skipping ropes, game items etc., from the classroom market spending the stars they earned throughout the whole quarter by performing in classes and doing homeworks accordingly. The initiative has been proven successful, as the students remained disciplined in classroom, attentive to learn the lessons, and enthused to complete the given task so that they could buy more thing from the class market. JAAGO plans to carry this forward to enhance children’s participation in classroom and create them as skillful generations.
Thank You Note
As Helen Keller said, ‘Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much’. All our supporters and sponsors have their share in our journey and success. So we thank you all for being with us in our mission to make this world a better place.
By Md. Morshedul Islam | Officer, Project Development Team
By Nazmus Saleh Sakib | Communication Officer
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