Education street children: Working for a noble cause

To help Bangladesh fight the curse of illiteracy the Shwapna Foundation took a very important initiative to educate street children both in rural and urban areas. Already the foundation established 2,000 street schools all the country. Already 50,000 students are being imparted primary education and 10,000 teachers are working there.

Dwelling on the importance of the foundation, its young founder Abu Naser Imtiaz Ahmed says education of the people is very important for socio-economic development of the country. So, the foundation is playing its part to remove the curse of illiteracy.

He moves all over the country and has seen for himself how grave the curse of illiteracy is. So, he founded the foundation to free the street children from this curse. He thinks education should be compulsory for the street children at least up to class ten.

Illiteracy is impeding the development of Bangladesh in many ways. Illiteracy is the root cause of poverty. The majority of our people live below the poverty line. They cannot manage two square meals a day. Some other problems like unemployment, poor health and sanitation and terrorism are also arising due to illiteracy. The Shwapna Foundation is working towards removal of it.

Abu Naser Imtiaz Ahmed thinks primary and secondary education must be made free and compulsory. A mass education programme should be undertaken to remove illiteracy of street children from the society. Social awareness must be raised to that end and the print and electric media can play vital role in doing that.

Established on October 1, 2015 the Shwapna Foundation has made its presence felt across the country by setting up 2,000 schools to impart primary education to 50,000 street students in class one to class three. In the days ahead the endeavour is just expected to pace up. The Netherlands Mission of Bangladesh and the Creating Skilled Human Recourses have sponsored it. The schools are mainly run in rented houses.

The head teachers of the schools are paid Tk 6,000 each a month and the assistant teachers are paid Tk 4,000 per month. The rent of each school is Tk 6000 per month. These schools are monitored and coordinated by the monitoring officers and coordinators throughout the country.