PAUL'S FEEDBACK

P/o Paul's feedbcak located at: http://web.me.com/paulvanderboor/Dhaka./Reflection.html

" Maria has built up the project with virtually no money and no local support but once RSF decided to take over they could have leveraged the momentum of the project to expand it further but it seems they are leading it into its demise. Not an unfamiliar story in Bangladesh. Maria has started a parallel project named The Catalyst, just around the corner of The Dhaka Project. The aim of The Catalyst is to provide jobs for the parents of the children to they can sustain themselves and their family to ensure that their children will continue to have access to education. After suspecting that our advice would not be welcome at The Dhaka Project we spent most of our time with Palash, the ‘captain’ of The Catalyst. We listened to the parents that daily attend English classes to increase their competitiveness in the labour market. We spoke to the children. The Catalyst had just hired a new teacher to teach English. While we sometimes felt desperate about the lack of pro-activeness in the people, we were absolutely blown away by the determination of some of the parents at The Catalyst. One parent, a rickshaw puller, told us his dream has always been to become a medicine salesman (pharmacist) so he could provide cheap medicine for the poor people in the slums. For that he needed to learn to read English to be able to read the names on the medicine boxes. Everyday, at 11 in the morning he goes to The Catalyst and attends 8 hours of English classes until 7pm. Then he goes home to drive his rickshaw until 5am in the morning to earn money to feed the family, before he briefly sleeps and goes to class again next day. He told me all of this in English after 7 months of classes.
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Paul