Breadcrumbs
From Beckenham to Bangladesh: quality education knows no boundaries
01 December 2010
Enthusiastic volunteers from Beckenham-based business The Student Support Centre headed out to Bangladesh at the beginning of this month to see exactly how their generous donations have helped children from Nalitabari, Bangladesh.
Sarah, National Marketing Manager for The Student Support Centre, and her colleague Darren Tye flew out on the 7th of November, alongside representatives from charity World Vision. Over the past year, The Student Support Centre has donated £12,500 to the Nalitabari Education Project, which seeks to raise awareness and improve the quality of education in this impoverished community in Northern Bangladesh.
Returning from the trip, an enthusiastic but exhausted Sarah said: ‘We wanted to travel to Nalitabari to see exactly where the money raised was going, how it was helping the children and if there were any areas for improvement. It was a life-changing experience to say the least.’
The benefits of the Education Project are numerous: from sponsoring children to attend secondary school and providing basic educational materials for primary school children, to the funding of teacher-training days. Over the course of the week the team visited various schools to meet the children and teachers they were helping, as well as generously donating frisbees, football kits and a football training session to the children, all of which caused great excitement.
The Student Support Centre also helps to fund early-morning additional tutoring sessions for over 450 children who are behind in their schoolwork. The sessions have helped bring education to the forefront in Nalitabari and raised children’s ambitions.
Future plans to help Nalitabari further include a donation of The Student Support Centre’s simply maths tuition, English tuition and reading tuition programmes. Designed by educationalists, the materials will help teachers to become accustomed to modern teaching methods.
As well as providing vital educational opportunities, The Student Support Centre also helps to fund the Nalitabari Elephant Deterrent Project. Elephants pose a very real threat to villages in the Nalitabari area; in the past they have stampeded through villages, taking food and destroying houses, leaving villagers scared and homeless. Tragically, two little boys from Panihata were killed last year by elephants. However, the future is looking more hopeful as The Student Support Centre raised extra funds to provide generators which power lights, thus deterring elephants from entering the village and leaving the villagers living without fear.
About World Vision:
World Vision is a global charity, which works to make a serious and sustainable impact on poverty and its causes, especially those that affect children. World Vision is committed to long-term change, which means connecting people. Whether it’s enabling people in developing communities to support each other, or linking donors to those in need through child sponsorship, or creating networks to campaign for justice, we believe that getting people connected is the best way to make a difference.
About The Student Support Centre:
The Student Support Centre opened its doors in 1991 and has since become the largest provider of home-based tuition programmes with 9 regional offices across the UK. Their ‘simply’ programmes provide home-based tuition and support for children aged between 4 and 17 and may be a more cost effective alternative to private tutors for learning maths tuition, English tuition and reading tuition. They have been designed to mirror the way in which children are taught in schools based on the National Curriculum requirements and use the teaching methods currently recommended for use in schools.
