Once again our sincere “thank you” to all the supporters who wished to allocate the “5xmille” of their income tax return to the Marist Foundation for International Solidarity (FMSI).
We are particularly happy for the result achieved this year, which went beyond any optimistic forecast. We worked hard in the “door to door” to make ourselves known and to expose our activities in support of the neediest children.
Part of the funds raised this year were donated to a project to purchase computers at the Saint Marcellin School in Moulovibazar (Bangladesh), which has now been in operation for more than 5 years (2 January 2017). It is a school to which everyone has access, but which mainly welcomes children from the tea plantations in the area around Sreemongol – Moulovibazar in north-eastern Bangladesh. Tea plantation workers are among the most disadvantaged human communities in the country, whose wages are below the UN-declared poverty level and slightly above USD 1 per day.
About 75 per cent of the students attending the school come from those plantations or from different ethnic minorities.
From the very beginning, the focus has been on providing them with a quality education, including computer skills and the use of computers. To this end, 16 computers were purchased in February 2017, a minimal amount that stimulated all the children to get acquainted with this ‘new tool’ that would also help them in learning the curricular subjects.
In the school and the hostels attached to it, multimedia content is now frequently used for teaching purposes, and it is for this purpose that 2 projectors and 2 sound systems were also included in the project. The funding received made it possible to acquire an additional 16 computers which, added to the previous ones, allow all students to make significant use of them. The objectives of the project are as follows
- To offer students the opportunity to better interface with the outside world;
- To promote conditions of greater opportunity in the search for a job in the near future
- To foster the ability to work in teams;
- To equip teachers with technological devices for both pedagogical and administrative purposes.
- Such a technology improvement has certainly elevated the educational offerings of a struggling community.
