We recently received this update from Barbara Mayo of the Amarok Society, which we support, telling us about what is happening at their Women’s School in Bangladesh where Nasima Khatun is a Mother and Teacher.
'I am happy to send Nasima’s letter on to you and do apologize for it taking so long! It is a wonderful letter and really shows how education has transformed Nasima’s life and world. She recently visited another slum and her description of it is so different from her own. This is because a Women’s School has been operating in Nasima’s slum for awhile now and the women who attend it have become community leaders and trusted members and the residents have learned from them and greatly improved their living conditions and situations.
We are sincerely appreciative of your support to Nasima and Amarok Society!'
Nasima and family
Nasima’s Letter
April 2024
Nasima Khatun
Khulna, Bangladesh
I am fine and doing well. My teaching students are progressing well and enjoying their learning. I shared about daily savings which are now supporting us to overcome the challenge of price hike. We are getting benefit personally and also help each other in their needs. We want more people in the slum to do it and get benefit of the personal savings but some people are not rational. They like to spend all their earnings on eating better to live better without thinking about the future. But suddenly if they fall in any crisis, go to the money lenders and they grab them in the loan trap. I visit the community and motivate my neighbors, especially women to do it for their own sake. You will be happy to know that many non-Amarok families have started savings and some join with us in our group savings. To get rid of the money lenders, this is a good initiative for the poor and irregular earning households.
Now we are working in the neighbor-slums to keep the environment neat and clean. A month ago, when we visited the neighbors’ community, we found an unhealthy environment there. I also found 2 families quarrelling and shouting at each other. I stepped forward and some people gathered and were enjoying the battle. At first, I didn't understand the issue but immediately understood there was no big issue, just 2 children of the families were playing outside, they had a conflict. Each of them coming back home informed the parents and now they were quarrelling. I asked a woman and she said, “Such thing happens every day, sometimes it happens because of throwing garbage out of home and it falls on someone's door, sometimes because of pets like ducks and hens”. We saw flies in the garbage and bad smells all around. We came back and discussed the issue in our mother-school. Our teacher formed a group to work in the slum for 2 weeks to develop their health awareness and cleanliness. I showed my interest to work in the team. Next day, we went to the slum and introduced ourselves, invited them to come and visit our slum and mother-school. We thought they might not come but giving us a surprise, 4 women from the slum came to our slum and visited our school. We became very happy to get them in our school and shared with them about our education and work in our community. After school, we had a walk in our slum and they found our slum very clean and a friendly relationship among the people of our slum. We took them to the Local Councilor’s office from where they can get plastic pots free of cost to set in the corners of the slum for garbage management and finally, they received 10 big pots although they asked for a few more. Now the slum looks very tidy and the best achievement of our work is that 3 women from that slum become interested in learning and are enrolled in our mother-school. It took 2 months to do the work but we are happy that it was done.
They are very happy and want an Amarok Mothers’ School to be set up in their School. We have sent a request in the Amarok Office to set up a new school in the community when opportunity comes.
Thank you for your kind support to my education and to our mother-school.
Nasima Khatun