バングラデシュのトイレのない学校の紹介
【2019年2月の活動報告】
Approximately 870,000 meals (progress rate: 38%) were distributed by February against Euglena cookie distribution target of 2.3 million meals for this term (October 2018 to September 2019).
1. Introduction of schools without toilets
Can you imagine a school without a toilet? There are schools without toilets in the slums of Bangladesh. There are 55 schools covered by the GENKI program, but 3 do not have toilets. This time, I would like to introduce one of them, Club Ten BDP Elementary School, where 80 children attend. The school originally had a toilet, but this is a special case where it became unavailable halfway through.
There are two reasons why the toilet is no longer available. The first is due to the low hygiene of children. When the school opened in 1995, teachers and children were using the toilet adjacent to the school. This toilet was managed by a local Rotary club (a community service federation) and paid a monthly fee of 400 yen. However, five years after the school opened, the Rotary Club banned children from using the toilet because they did not use the toilet cleanly and were not well cleaned. The background is that children in slums do not have a habit of using the toilet cleanly because they do not have hygiene education. The second is due to prejudice and discrimination against children in slums. Although it is a Rotary club that should be a model for society, it sometimes acts to look down on children in slums. These factors lead to the unreasonable and disastrous situation of not having a toilet in the school.
Under these circumstances, children living near the school use the toilet at home. On the other hand, children who are far from home rent a toilet at a friend's house in the neighborhood. When I'm not feeling well, I can't go to the bathroom right away, which is difficult. Another problem is that children cannot concentrate on their lessons. The principal is very worried about the health of the children who endure going to the bathroom. I also feel the importance of hygiene education to use the toilet cleanly. I would like to promote such hygiene education in the future as part of the activities of the GENKI program.
Photo-1: General toilet in a slum
Photo-2: Teachers and children after class
2. Introduction of a girl who balances study and housework
This month, I would like to introduce Shoma-chan (14 years old) who does housework at home while attending school. She is a family of five, a rickshaw driver's father, mother, brother working at a textile factory, and younger brother. My mom had severe asthma a year and a half ago, and inhaling dust and cooking smoke puts a strain on her lungs, making it difficult to do all the housework. That's why Shoma cooks, cleans, and does the laundry instead.
Her day is a very hard schedule. I wake up at 5:30 every morning, study for an hour and a half, cook my family's breakfast, and then study at school from 8 to 11:30. After returning home, I will clean the house, make lunch, and do the laundry. After finishing my homework, I will start making dinner. We have a supper around 21:00 (in Bangladesh, a supper around 21:00 is common), finish cleaning up around 22:00, and go to bed around 23:00. Shoma has been helping her mother with housework since she was 6 years old, so she does the housework perfectly. Above all, I am delighted to cook and have my family eat it.
Although she manages such a tight schedule, she has excellent grades and is ranked in the top three in the final exams of the school every year. It seems that he has less time to play with his friends because he is busy with housework, but he seems to be looking forward to playing with his friends by jumping rope during school breaks.
Photo-3: Shoma-chan cleaning
Photo-4: Shoma-chan, who cooks her favorite dish in housework
Photo-5: Jumping rope with a friend
Photo-6: Mom, Shoma, younger brother
Photo-7: Shoma-chan (back right) and children eating cookies
3. About school education about natural disasters
Eight years have passed since the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011. Even in Bangladesh, this unprecedented catastrophe was widely covered in the news at that time. Many people were shocked by the images of the tsunami. As you know, Japan is prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, floods, and landslides. Similar to Japan, Bangladesh is subject to frequent floods and typhoons called cyclones. Storm surges and storms cause serious damage, especially in coastal areas, as more than 50% of the country is lowlands, 7 meters above sea level. Overcrowded countries with about 160 million people living in the same land area as the total area of Hokkaido and Kyushu, and more than 50% of the working population are engaged in agriculture and fisheries that are directly affected by disasters. It is said that doing so is a factor that increases the damage caused by natural disasters. The 1991 cyclone killed about 140,000 people.
For this reason, at school, second-year junior high school children study about natural disasters in social studies classes. The textbook describes not only the cyclone but also the tsunami caused by the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake in Japan. By learning about the causes of cyclones and tsunamis, children learn about the horrors of natural disasters. In addition, in class, when a cyclone occurs, we are instructing the government to escape to the cyclone shelter for evacuation of residents. A shelter is a sturdy building like a school in Japan. In this way, even in Bangladesh, we are conducting education to raise awareness of disasters in order to protect our precious lives.
Photo-8: Children learning about the causes of cyclones
Photo-9: A child confirming the position of Japan on a world map
Photo-10: Explanation of tsunami and Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake in textbooks
Photo-11: Cyclone shelter to evacuate in the event of a disaster
Thank you for your continued support.
Euglena Co., Ltd.
Overseas Business Development Department / Bangladesh Office