A ray of hope for downtrodden children
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Jahedul Alam, who joined as a teacher at a private school after completing his post-graduation, had a long-cherished dream to do something for underprivileged children.
Back in 2016, he shared his dream with his four friends -- Mohan, Souvagga, Sorup and Abbas -- and held a meeting in Chattogram's Outer Stadium. The five decided to open a school for downtrodden children.
To turn the dream into a reality, the five youths decided that each would deposit Tk 100 every month after opening a bank account in Agrani Bank Limited. They continued with the deposit for the next seven months.
Later the four, except Jahedul, become busy with their academic life. But Jahedul never stopped dreaming.
In 2017, Jahedul, along with his friends Sourav Chowdhury, John Mohammad, Ranjan Saha, Sanny Chowdhury, Urmi Barua and 12 others, set up a library named Agnibina Pathagar and started working for underprivileged children.
In February 2019, they set up Swapnobagicha Bidyaniketan making a tin-shed structure at Tigerpass Railway Colony in the port city.
In the beginning, the school had 30 disadvantaged children and three teachers who used to provide voluntary services. Currently, the school has 150 students and six paid teachers.
With the monthly contribution of the library members and donations from their near and dear ones, the school is run by the 18 founding members with Jahedul at the helm. It offers education from the pre-primary level up to fifth grade. The school starts at 10:00am and finishes at 2:30pm from Saturday to Thursday.
Apart from teaching, free school supplies, medical facilities and lunch are also given to the children.
Rickshaw-puller Joynal and his RMG worker wife Fatema are now happy as their daughter, Farzana, is getting a quality education at the school.
Thanking the founders of the school, Fatema said, "It was nearly impossible for us to send our daughter to a good school with this standard of education."
Like them, guardians of the other children of the school also expressed their satisfaction with the overall activities of the school.
Sourav Chowdhury, one of the founders of the school, said they established the school for children hit hard by poverty, following their disappointment with the existing education system.
"The existing education system -- general, madrasa and vocational -- is fully discriminatory. Hence, we launched the school to provide universal education to underprivileged children at the primary level at least," he added.
Jahedul told The Daily Star that they would take all the responsibilities for the children's further academic life after their primary education.
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