Bandarban School, Bangladesh
In 2022, we heard about the opportunity to help build a school in a remote region of Bangladesh. Rupa, a Bangladeshi woman, was pulling together funds from around the globe after encountering villages without any formal education while researching the health and resilience of indigenous people. Our ConnectHER community donated funds to help build the school and hostels (most students board due to the remote location), and classes began. We had already been supporting girls in Bandarban with scholarships since 2019, and this school became a natural extension of that commitment.
We recently sent a ConnectHER team member, Constance, to Bangladesh to meet with these young students and their teachers. There are approximately 1.65 million indigenous people in Bangladesh, representing only 1% of the population, mostly residing in the Chittagong Hill Tract area. This area where Bandarban is located has seen a lot of violence between various ethnic groups as well as spillover conflict from neighboring Myanmar. Due to security concerns, travel to Bandarban was not permitted, but Constance was still able to gather with a handful of students and their teachers. Of the five girls she met with, they represented three tribes, three languages and three religions. For many of the students, they were the first ones in their family to ever attend school. It's truly an incredible effort to bring together these young people and to imagine a different future for them in light of all the challenges they face.
ConnectHER continues to send funds throughout the year to support this grassroots effort to create education where there hasn't been education before. It's an honor to partner with this community and these young women for their futures. We are so grateful to Rupa and the teachers especially for their commitment!
