Rotary E-Club of Heritage New York is proud to inform its Members that, thanks to their support, in its very first year it has succeeded in submitting a proposal for a Rotary Global Grant Project. The Project on “Quality education for poor rural children in Bangladesh through Teacher Training” is expected to receive approval from the Rotary Foundation soon.The endeavor is a joint international project, in which our Rotary Club is the International Partner and Banani Rotary Club of Dhaka is the Host Partner. The Host Partner implements the project through a local partner which has expertise in implementing similar projects, monitors the project throughout its life-cycle, and manages the financial and reporting aspects of the project. The local partner selected to implement the project is a Bangladeshi NGO in the field of education, the Volunteers Association for Bangladesh (VAB).
For the vast majority of rural poor families in Bangladesh, education is the only avenue that offers their children the opportunity for achieving competence and skills to earn a livelihood. However, one of the most critical problems faced by the rural educational institutions is the quality and quantity of teachers who are deficient in both content knowledge and pedagogy. Our Club’s Global Grant Project aims to infuse better content knowledge and advanced modern pedagogy in ill-equipped rural teachers through training. The ultimate development objective of the project will be to enhance the educational achievement and proficiency level of rural school students. The project aims to train approximately 600 teachers over a period of three years. It is expected that these trained teachers will over their teaching careers be able to have an impact on the learning of more than 400,000 students.
It is an amazing partnership that came together to bring this project to fruition. 5 Rotary Clubs – one in New York and 4 in Dhaka, 5 Rotary Districts – one in Bangladesh and 4 in New York and New Jersey all combined to raise more than half of the Project funding. The Rotary Foundation’s World Fund stepped in with the remainder - A remarkable example of how "Rotary Connects the World".
The Project will require funds of about $35,000. Starting with base amounts of funds raised by our Club as the International Partner and Banani Rotary Club as the Host Partner, the respective Districts – District 7230 in New York and District 3281 in Bangladesh -are generously pitching in with matching funds (District Designed Funds – DDF). In addition, through the intervention of District Governor Mahbub Ahmad, 4 neighboring Districts in New York and New Jersey are also contributing about $4,000. The Rotary Foundation will be providing matching funds on the basis of the contributions of the Clubs and the Districts.
The base amount from our Club is $5,250. Our Members made kind donations which made it possible to raise the requisite amount. We are particularly grateful to President Syed Zaki Hossain, Rotarians Dr. A T Rafiqur Rahman, Dr. Fazlur R Chowdhury, Nurul Alam, Mati Pal, and a few other members and well-wishers who wish to remain anonymous for their generous contributions. Our special thanks go to Past President Nurul Alam, who developed the project proposal on the basis of a model Rotary Global Grant Project in Nepal, provided to him by District Governor Mahbub Ahmad.
Shining President Shahida Naz Huda of the Banani Club ran with the proposal and was able to convince not only her Club to lead the project, but also 3 other Clubs in Dhaka to join in and her District officials to approve the project.
It is expected that following approval by the Rotary Foundation, work can begin on the project in early summer.