As a member of a poor community, poverty is always a challenge to me but I want to overcome all the barriers with my courage, education which we have got from my school. Crises, conflict, sickness and misperceptions are the regular scenarios of the daily life of the slum dwellers. But I do not care about that, rather I want to overcome it and help others to come out of it. Before my schooling, I couldn’t manage things well but now I can manage better. Now I understand the root causes of a conflict, problem and most of the time people’s unawareness is responsible for that. To me economic empowerment by own earning is important for a woman. So, I have been taking advanced tailoring training for 2 months so that I can make a better earning. I want to empower myself and develop my skills. My husband works hard and wants to educate our children. I can see a big change in him. At the start of my school, he did not support my learning and thought women are born for doing the domestic work, looking after children but now he thinks differently and values me as her wife, as a mother-teacher and loves me. You will be happy to know that I gave birth to a new baby. She is a girl and in good health.
In our slum all children are now learning but there are some elderly people who are completely illiterate and cannot even write their names. We have decided to give them some education like how to write names, numbers and counting. Not everybody is interested but many are. But when they try to write something, they hold the pencil strongly and it is difficult to run the pencil. Now I am teaching an elderly woman who lives next door. She came to our slum a year before to live with her elder son’s family. She cooks and does some domestic work. Sometimes she visits our mother-school and observes our learning. She is hesitant to come inside the classroom. Her name is Rubia Khanam and about 70 years old. I call her Rubi Khala. In Bengali, ‘Khala’ means aunty. She often regrets, if she had an opportunity of learning in her childhood! I have told her not to worry, I would teach her that she can read & write simple things.
Thank you very much for your support of my education and the children I am teaching.
Lovingly yours,
Nasima Begum