Hello Everyone!!!
Work has finally decided to give me lots of things to do, and all of a sudden I find myself swamped! I knew this was going to happen. My life has reached a lull of permanently editing documents for my coworkers, so things haven't been too exciting. As a solution, I've posted a collection of pictures from my trip to the fisheries below.
Baniachang has a unique situation with schools because within the poor and ultra poor classes, more girls attend classes than boys. Unfortunately this isn't a testament to gender equality in the most rural regions of the country, but rather a reflection of child labour opportunities. In and around the cities, garment factories are one of the largest sources of female income generation. Therefore, the urban areas follow the more typical developing country model of families sending girls to work and boys to school.
In the haor areas, the flooding creates seasonal occupations, such as boatmen and fish farmers (which are male only jobs). Children already have a hard time attending school regularly during monsoon because they can no longer walk to class and cannot afford to rent a boat. Male students especially have high dropout rates during monsoon, as an increase in the job market is conducive to poor attendance. The family benefits from the extra income and pushes the child to go to work, the child misses school and falls behind in his/her studies, rather than catching up on six months material the child continues to work as a labourer, jumping from one job opportunity to the next.
I was shocked myself to walk into a school and see that 90% of the kids were girls. Normally it's the reverse and it was most refreshing to see that girls were finally the ones getting an education for a change. However, I realised that most programmes were targeting the wrong audience regarding child labour because they did not adjust their model to the unique situation in these villages. While I'm sure they recognised the situation, the reality is that donors don't want to fund a programme that will increase male class attendance in some of the most hard-to-reach areas of Bangladesh. But, if you say 27 out of 30 students in BRAC's primary school are female, you've created an eligible programme that will recieve lots of funding, even if it doesn't address the real problem.
My coworkers are appalled when I tell them that I probably won't go into the non-profit sector as a permanent occupation, and scoff at the idea of entering the corporate world with a social mission. They feel that large corporations are all about money, and yet if they just took a second to evaluate their organisation, they would realise 99% of their job is fundraising (don't worry, I won't tell them because I am fairly certain my entire department would have a heart attack after hearing such blasphemy). Nevertheless, after I submit my edits to their boat school research proposal, I intend to bring up the subject about male student attendance and see what their response is. If I'm lucky, maybe it will be jarring enough to create some programme changes.
Work has finally decided to give me lots of things to do, and all of a sudden I find myself swamped! I knew this was going to happen. My life has reached a lull of permanently editing documents for my coworkers, so things haven't been too exciting. As a solution, I've posted a collection of pictures from my trip to the fisheries below.
Baniachang has a unique situation with schools because within the poor and ultra poor classes, more girls attend classes than boys. Unfortunately this isn't a testament to gender equality in the most rural regions of the country, but rather a reflection of child labour opportunities. In and around the cities, garment factories are one of the largest sources of female income generation. Therefore, the urban areas follow the more typical developing country model of families sending girls to work and boys to school.
In the haor areas, the flooding creates seasonal occupations, such as boatmen and fish farmers (which are male only jobs). Children already have a hard time attending school regularly during monsoon because they can no longer walk to class and cannot afford to rent a boat. Male students especially have high dropout rates during monsoon, as an increase in the job market is conducive to poor attendance. The family benefits from the extra income and pushes the child to go to work, the child misses school and falls behind in his/her studies, rather than catching up on six months material the child continues to work as a labourer, jumping from one job opportunity to the next.
I was shocked myself to walk into a school and see that 90% of the kids were girls. Normally it's the reverse and it was most refreshing to see that girls were finally the ones getting an education for a change. However, I realised that most programmes were targeting the wrong audience regarding child labour because they did not adjust their model to the unique situation in these villages. While I'm sure they recognised the situation, the reality is that donors don't want to fund a programme that will increase male class attendance in some of the most hard-to-reach areas of Bangladesh. But, if you say 27 out of 30 students in BRAC's primary school are female, you've created an eligible programme that will recieve lots of funding, even if it doesn't address the real problem.
My coworkers are appalled when I tell them that I probably won't go into the non-profit sector as a permanent occupation, and scoff at the idea of entering the corporate world with a social mission. They feel that large corporations are all about money, and yet if they just took a second to evaluate their organisation, they would realise 99% of their job is fundraising (don't worry, I won't tell them because I am fairly certain my entire department would have a heart attack after hearing such blasphemy). Nevertheless, after I submit my edits to their boat school research proposal, I intend to bring up the subject about male student attendance and see what their response is. If I'm lucky, maybe it will be jarring enough to create some programme changes.
No comments:
Post a Comment