Introduction


Welcome to The Dhaka Project website. For those of you who know little or nothing about us, let us start by introducing ourselves and our work. We run a non profit project that works to provide much needed support to poor families and their children in Dhaka.
We believe it is humanitarian effort and we aim to:

• Provide training to the adult members of families, to overcome poverty and become self-sufficient Educate the children to give them opportunities in the future previously not available.
• To give short-term aid in terms of clothing, food and medical aid while the families are learning.

In short, the objective is to bring new sources of income to some of Bangladesh’s poorest people. The emphasis is placed on supporting sustainable development, particularly with children. And to support local economy and longevity of the work, we use local resources where ever possible. Maria Conceicao, the founding member, scoped the project out in April 2005 and it was officially launched in July 2005. Since this time she has been joined by a dedicated locally employed team and volunteers from Bangladesh and the world over, who believe in this cause as much as she does. So how to do you take steps to help the social and intellectual development of some of the poorest Bangladeshi population? Though we do many things, as this is your introduction, we will try and focus on three of the key attributes to our work:

• Children’s education development
  
  The children are selected from low productivity – low income families living in slum areas. The programme caters to children aged 4 and above providing them with education and supporting their daily basic needs such as food, school uniforms, books, stationery material, rain coats, shoes, socks and toiletries.

• Womens skills development programme
  
  The women’s programme involves training in tailoring, beauty, English and the fabrication of handicrafts. The ladies are provided with a daily meal, stipend salary, tailoring training and raw materials. Courses last between three and six duration (9 am – 5 pm) and on completions they are transferred in to awaiting job vacancies. In order to help the women focus on learning their skills effectively and in a timely manner, a pre-school /day care facility is offered for all of the participants’ children.

• Men’s skills development programme
  
  The men are admitted in a driving school and undertake English classes. In addition, the project has recently purchased a small fleet of Rickshaws which the men may rent out to earn supplementary earnings.

  As for the women, job vacancies are carefully secured for their fulfilling on completion of their training.

In order to do these activities and to support suitable employability, hygiene, medical and welfare needs have to be addressed. With this in mind, basic homes are provided, clothes and food. In addition, qualified dental practitioners visit the community on a regular basis and a doctor runs weekly medical check-ups as well as being on call in case of any emergency situations. In addition to families have access to funds for essential medications, we ensure all children are vaccinated against Hepatitis B and Typhoid.

We think it is an amazing project to work on and we extend our warmest welcome wishes to you in learning more about us, whether it is through the website, via personal correspondence or whether you simply want to come and visit us in Dhaka.