Tea garden children getting education by Korea funded project

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DHAKA, June 08, 2020 (BSS)- The children of tea gardens in Sreemongal and Kamalgonj upazilas of Moulvibazar district are getting education by a scheme named Earth Project of Child Fund Korea through Educo Bangladesh, a local NGO.

The project is also working in Baikka Beel area of the district

to eradicate child marriage. Started since January 1 in 2017, the project stopped several early marriage attempts at tea estates in Sreemongal and Kamalgonj upazila.

Breaking The Silence, another NGO, which works against child sexual abuse in the Country, implementing the project as a partner.

Educo is working at hard to reach areas of four tea gardens in Sreemongal and Kamalgonj, and Baikka Beel haor area. It is playing significant role to increase education of tea workers’ children and reduce child marriage.

Patrokhola Tea Estate in Kamalganj, Bharaoora Tea Estate in Sreemongal, MR Khan Tea Estate in Sreemongal, Hosenabad Tea Estate in Sreemongal, and Baikka Beel (Haor) in Sreemongal are under the project.

According to Breaking The Silence, tea gardens and haor are such marginalized areas where majority of the household falls below absolute poverty lines.

Negligible percentage of the children attend schools in tea gardens while dropout rate from primary education is the highest rate in haor areas. Child labor is common among the children and high prevalence of child marriage.

In order to address this situation, the project is focusing on access to childhood education: early childhood development activities introduced through 15 early childhood development centers for the children aged 3-5 years – involvement of parents and community people and capacity building on early childhood development, child rights and child protection.

Besides, learning environment in targeted four company schools of tea gardens improved through training of teachers, supply of pedagogic materials and participation of children in school governance.

Communities and School Management Committee have also been empowered to manage early childhood development centers and ensure school development, for the betterment of the children protection: communities have been enabled to raise voice on child rights and protection issues.

Regular communication is being maintained with local education offices and like minded entities to have required cooperation and collaboration.

Program officer of the project Shafia Sami said their project has achieved a lot of success specially increasing education rate in the four tea gardens.

Breaking The Silence Executive Director Roksana Begum said Earth project is working in tea gardens and haor area as children of these areas are highly deprived of proper education and early marriage rate high.

After launching this project, several hundred students came under the education program and early marriage rate has been fully reduced.