Left Out, Left Behind

Thanks to your generosity in Christmas 2022, the Learning Booster Centre was fully funded for 2 years.

Starting in May 2023, the Centre has supported the education of over 400 primary aged children and helped 40 teenage mentors continue their education. It has been a hugely successful project! We hope to cover the costs of a further year of this project through our Harvest Appeal, Building On Success.

Read more about the original Learning Booster Centre appeal…

Covid left six year old *Asim’s family deep in debt. Lockdown ruined his Dad’s business as a rickshaw-puller, and the family took on punitive loans just to survive.

Now all Dad’s earnings go to pay off loans with interest, and buy medicine for Asim’s grandmother. There is nothing left for Asim’s education.

16 year old *Piyal’s family also resorted to desperate measures, marrying Piyal off to an older man so there was one less mouth to feed. The marriage failed and now she’s back home. She desperately wants to go back to school, but her parents want her to work. They need the money.

Asim and Piyal are typical of millions of children in Bangladesh who have been left out and left behind because of Covid. A staggering 80% of children in rural Bangladesh have dropped out of school following the long school closures.

This Christmas we’re fundraising for a new project offering a way back into life-changing education for children and young people like Asim and Piyal.

Our Bangladeshi partners are opening 20 new Learning Booster Centres, providing up to 300 children aged 5-10 with homework support and coaching, so they can catch up with their education. The centres will run for 2-3 hours a day, five days a week.

Around 40 young mentors will facilitate the centres. These will be young people aged 14-19 who have been forced to drop out of secondary school. They will receive training, including safeguarding training, to help younger children’s learning. They will be monitored by qualified teachers who will plan lessons and activities.

The young people will receive funding so they can pay for tuition to help them catch up with their own studies, and to support their families, while they transition back to school.

In addition, our partners will work with families to develop income-generating activities. They hope that by stabilising family finances, families will stop relying on child labour and refocus on education.

We hope to raise £74,000 through our Christmas Appeal to fund the entire project, for two years from early 2023.

Head of Operations, Steve Wicking, says: “This is a short-term intervention with potential for a life-long impact, perhaps for generations to come. Covid has had a catastrophic effect on learning in the poorest communities. This creates a downward spiral; further marginalisation, reduced income, poorer health and missed opportunities.

In contrast, this initiative is a great opportunity to change the story for hundreds of children in Bangladesh. We can give them back the opportunities taken from them by the pandemic. Please help us give them this chance to build a better future.”