"Pink Bags" scholarships for young girls

After almost two years, the year 2022 has brought some relief for us, as Dalit organization has been able to implement all the activities as per its plan since the beginning of this year. In the meantime, people's lifestyles, thoughts, occupations, mentality, habits, tastes, etc. have changed a lot. Covid-19 pandemic has pushed us back a bit.More emphasis has been placed on conducting advocacy/ meetings at the beneficiary level to reduce gender inequality and violence against women, prevent child marriage, increase the importance of women's education and raise awareness about reproductive health and rights. With the provision of educational materials as well as health care materials, students are less affected by the disease and school attendance rates remain normal.

Distribution of health protection materials

Although the prevalence of Covid-19 has been reduced, but in order to continue the health risk reduction practices, masks and soaps have been distributed among the students of the schools. Through the awareness meeting organized at the village level, 4 masks and 2 soaps were given to each of the 890 students in May. In other words, a total of 3,560 masks and 1,780 soaps have been distributed. The meetings were attended by local representatives, school management committee members and the villagers.

In May, 100 female students studying in colleges/ universities were given 1 packet of sanitary napkins each for their reproductive health care. Also, medical services have been provided to 50 sick students on 9 April, 2022 through Dalit Hospital.

Skills development training for teachers

A three days long training was organized by Dalit to develop teacher's skill of 12 schools under this project. Through this training teacher were oriented on teaching strategy, question making strategy, proper use of school register, reporting, case study writing, meeting arranging strategy, creative education system etc. The training was held from 16th to 18th April at Dalit Hospital auditorium. Upazila Education Officer of Tala along with Govt. school teacher were facilitated the training.

Currently there are no Covid-19 related restrictions in Bangladesh; however the small numbers of people are still infected with Covid-19. The main reason for this is the reluctance to use face masks. After a long time, Dalit has been able to work in a barrier-free environment, which has made it possible for them to work closely with the beneficiaries. As the activities of the project are familiar to the local villagers and stakeholders, they provided all kinds of support to Dalit and took part in the activities

M.'s parents' dream came true

M. D., daughter of S.D. and S.D. of a village (G.) llocated in Paikgachha Upazila of Khulna district. Despite being a village girl, M. had strong will power. She had an indomitable effort to establish herself after finishing her studies. But it was not so easy to make that possible in the rural environment. She has a brother. There are 4 members in her family. M's father makes bamboo made baskets and sells them to make a living. So he could not pay his children’s educational expenses in full. In this situation, when M. applied to Dalit to get monthly stipend, Dalit accepted her application and provided her guidelines and incentives to reach her goal. The entire stipend money she spent on her studies. She left the village and went to the city to finish Diploma in nursing course. After completing the diploma course, she got a job in a non-government clinic in Barisal district and from there she gets a salary of BDT 15,000. Her parents' dream seemed to come true. They were very happy and thanked to Dalit. Because with the help and encouragement of Dalit, M. had the courage to leave the village and went to the city to finish her study. Today M. is self reliant. And so she wants to share this success with Dalit.