Switch Bangladesh Foundation (SBF) currently manages two schools for underprivileged children in Dhaka.
Switch Tahmina Banu Bidyaniketan (STBBN) is in Mohammadpur, Dhaka. We started this school in 2015 in a rundown hut with 40 kindergarten and grade 1 students. Today we have 345 students spanning from pre-primary Kindergarten to Grade 10 – housed in a relatively decent rental building with room for each grade, a teacher’s room, a small library with male/female bathrooms, and an ICT laboratory. All the students who are attending this school are from marginalized and disadvantaged communities, essentially, they are slum children. Their parents are mostly daily laborers, rickshaw pullers, and housemaids. These poor parents can barely bring two square meals for their children.
Switch Bidyaniketan (SBN) is at Haddipotti Slum, Darussalam, Mirpur. This school is a recent addition to our program, starting in 2020. The students at this school are from underprivileged families living in one of the most densely populated slum areas of Dhaka. More than 300 children of 1000-plus families don’t have access to formal education due to extreme poverty, and broken family, which leads to child labor, child marriage, and uncertain life. Switch Bidya Niketan started its journey in a very small-scale initiative with 400 square feet of huts made of bamboo and tin sheets. This year we have 100 students from Pre-Primary Grade to Grade 3. We are providing them with basic education as per the Bangladesh government’s education curriculum.
Number of studentsÂ
Boys: 200
Girls: 250
Number of classesÂ
Pre primary to grade ten
Number of unsponsored students
280
Number of sponsored students
180
The mission of education is to gradually change our teaching techniques to develop thinking and creativity in our students through hands-on modern technologies through qualified and creative teachers and volunteers.
The heart of educational teaching process is to create lesson plans in a smarter, creative, hand-on and pragmatic way to develop excitement, interest and inquisitiveness in students. Most importantly – generate creative way of thinking by the students.
We at Switch Bangladesh Foundation not only take care of providing formal education but give them exposure to the wider world and different cultures as well as takes care of their health needs, provides nutritious food, regular health checkup and free medicine etc. Here is a list of supporting projects to enhance the student’s learning capabilities.
Extra-curricular activities help students to learn about themselves and develop and use their skills and knowledge in different contexts. Extracurricular activities are essential for students because they allow them to learn about themselves and their interests. They also help them in their future careers and life. This can also help students find their passion in life. So we switch Bangladesh foundation always focus on extracurricular activities with the regular academic text book.
Our students come from the poorest communities where children suffer from malnutrition and other nutrition–related maladies. Without proper sustenance, learning can become very difficult. We are providing nutritious food on a regular basis which allows them to better focus on learning. Each simple, nutritious meal consists of a hard-boiled egg or nuts, a seasonal fruit or vegetable mixed rice and milk once a week. Children become more attentive and eager to learn with a full belly instead of coming to school hungry or sick.
Under the Education Development Program, every year we provide study materials (pen, notebook, pencil, school bag, school uniform, books, shoes, warm cloth) to our students. The purpose of school uniform is to ensure a sense of identity and pride, cohesion and good order in the school, allowing all students to feel equal, preventing bullying and competition on the basis of clothing. This school uniform strengthens the spirit of community, encourages students to develop self-dignity in their appearance, and to present themselves appropriately. Â It also creates a more cohesive environment and good behavior in students.
Whilst we switch Bangladesh Foundation is providing free education for the children, also we are trying to improve the overall hygiene of our students. Most of our students are not used a toothbrush and don’t have soap. So, we are providing these basic hygienic products (toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, shampoo) for our students. This little help leads to better health of our students.
Switch Bangladesh Foundation provides free medical checkup and medicine to all our students. Every year we organize free dental checkup, medical camp and we distribute deworming medicine as a regular basis to our students.
Today’s world is largely shaped by the availability of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Global economy is powered by technology, fueled by information and driven by knowledge. We at Switch believe that one of the best and fastest way to shape a bright future of our students is by providing them access and training in computer skills, coding and programming, website design, computer set up and repair etc. Realizing this fact and the growing demand of computer proficiency in the job market, we Switch Bangladesh Foundation designed a skill development project (with a state-of-art ICT Laboratory) that aims to empower the targeted students with free computer education.
We have several clubs in our school to create small communities. They attract people who share the same interests such as in music, arts, sports, environment and debate Club activities help students develop sense of unity and teamwork, learning how to work with others in reaching the same goals. They help learners to develop social skills.
The main objective of the chess program is to help the students in their mental development along with studies. Currently we have one international trainer and more than 45 students are learning chess regularly at our school. Meanwhile students have participated in several national tournaments and won awards from different tournaments. Notable among these are Second Division Women’s Chess League, National Women’s Chess League, National Youth Chess Championship, Carnival Chess Festival, and Inter School Chess Festival. Two of our students received the fourth and fifth prizes respectively from the U-12 girls’ group in the National Youth Chess Championship. One of the girls was internationally rated. Her fide rating is 1114. We are proud to have one of our girls receive an international rating in such a short period of training.
Switch Bangladesh Foundation arranges extra-curricular activities on a regular basis with a special focus on such categories –fine art exhibitions, wall magazine competitions, recitation competitions, game shows of English Vocabulary, sports programs, study tours, and essay competitions with a wider view to uplift the students’’ creative spirits, broaden imaginary horizons as well as to increase the team building mentality.
Every day our students clean their school for several minutes –Â it creates awareness among the students to keep their School as well as their surrounding clean.
