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Could you be an advocate for the slum children?
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These beautiful small children need to be in schools, and not on the streets. Slum dwellers are caught up in a cycle of poverty, for decades. Times have changed, and the world has more resources, ingenuity, and technology to make changes. It is upon us to educate these children and level the playing field rigged against them.
DoPeace has started schools, called Learning Centers, in the slums of Bangladesh. Each center serves a community of 200 - 500 families, and educates 210 children at the cost of $1 per student/month. We are a fast growing non-profit organization dedicated to the education of the children in the slums. Our goal is to bring the slum children into the government educational system, after they graduate from our preschools. We strive to reduce the dropout by offering after-school coaching. We do not open full scale schools as that is a far more expensive route and will limit us in our goals for mass education. There are 9,450 children enrolled this year in 45, one-room learning centers run by five highly competent and experienced local non-goverment organizations. However, many more children need help. Would you be an advocate for their education?
Please support the children. Please click below to Donate. Also, please shop your favorite merchants (such as Amazon.com) as they will donate to DoPeace at no additional cost to you.
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The story of Armin--the student,
and Morium--the teacher
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Age 5, Armin lives in the slums of Mirpur, Bangladesh. Her mother is a homemaker and father a rickshaw puller. With three children, they make a subsistence living. They never thought Armin would go to school until DoPeace started Abraham Lincoln Learning Center in the middle of their community of about 300 households.
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Morium, the assigned instructor, went house to house and pitched for the education of the children. It required some convincing to round up 210 children needed to run the school at full capacity. Illiteracy runs in the family. Armin’s parents and grandparents are illiterate. According to the statistics, the likelihood was very high that she would never set foot in a school.
When Morium started the school, it was very hard to convince the children to come to the classroom on time. She would walk house to house to bring the children in, each time teaching the parents to get the child ready for school on time. It required months before this “culture” of education sank into their minds. She will continue to teach the need for education until the community was in sync with her. In school, Morium is very kind and pleasant and makes reading fun. Now Armin is all excited, arrives to school on time, and looks forward to this every day. Morium is now a celebrity in the community, as a teacher who cares about their children.
The story of Armin, the student, and Morium, the teacher, is being repeated many times over in all the DoPeace centers in Bangladesh.
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In the slums, the cycle of poverty is on autopilot -- illiteracy being the root-cause of this engine. To stop, or even slow down this engine would require lots of energy. However, we have found a soft spot that does the trick. Ultimately, parents do not want their children to follow their footsteps. We focused on convincing the parents that education is paramount for the change. We tell them that the change comes with a cost. They will have to give up on sending their children to work to augment their income. For the most part, we find them ready for it. We partner with the parents for the ultimate good of the community.
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But we need to do our part. We need to provide access to education to the children. The low-cost approach we have developed has put
12,623 children into schools in just one and a half years.
Can we put 50,000 slum children in the schools in the next three years? With your advocacy, we believe the goal is achievable!
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