Educating A Child - Empowering A Future

Ruhul Amin, aged 7, is out of the house by 6:30 in the morning. With a belly barely filled with parathas, he swings his metal tiffin carrier, hurrying to the local brick factory. After a relentless day of breaking bricks, still not having enough money to eat, he makes his way to the local factory pond hoping to catch a fish.

This is the typical day of many children within slums in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Although accessible, an education or even a childhood is a dream for the few that can afford to eat.

To give children like Ruhul Amin the opportunity to get a quality education, MAA has established two after-school support programs, each center with 10 children per teacher and supervisor. The centers are located in the Khulshi Colony and the Jungle Battiari within the community area.

The activities begin at 2:00 with a nutritious lunch from MAA, after the children have attended the formal government school, and go on till 7 in the evening. During this time the children learn social concepts like hygiene, nutrition and the environment and engage in extracurricular activities such as sports, music, crafts, as well as enhancing their formal education with cognitive understanding.

In terms of community development and capacity building, other programs that are sponsored by MAA include teacher trainings, monthly parent teacher meetings, doctor's check ups and field trips. These projects then serve to uplift the community as a whole and encourage the parents to take a more active role in their children's education.

MAA together with Mamata, a local Bangladesh registered non-governmental organization, hopes to continue providing these services with the highest possible standards.

Located in rural Uganda, Buwagga Senior Secondary School was established by the community members with the objective of being able to offer equal access to quality education right in their own village. In particular, the school is working towards building a progressive science and vocational studies program, while still ensuring that this program is accessible to all students, in particular the rural poor and girls.

The school is promoting research with the community for the adoption of appropriate technical solutions, which can be locally maintained, generating long-term benefits.

Since 2007, MAA has been continuously supporting Buwagga Senior Secondary school by providing funds that will go directly to the science program, a major cost for the school.