RSSThe number of new first-graders has tripled since nuns began a day-care center a year ago in a largely tribal parish in northwestern Bangladesh that now plans to set up student hostels.
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Children studying at the day-care center |
Meanwhile, the number of youngsters at the center Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate run in Queen Assumed into Heaven Parish has more than doubled too. The nuns are popularly known as the PIME sisters.
The 60 children aged 1-7, all of them Catholics and most of them members of the Paharia tribal group, stay at the center daily from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. The nuns teach education fundamentals and moral values, provide art lessons and arrange sports activities.
“We also provide healthy and nutritious food for the children, which is essential for their growth,” says Sister Golapi Gomes, the director.
Shilpi Biswas, a Catholic Paharia mother, is grateful for those services and more. Her daughter, Jacinta, attends the nearby St. Don Bosco Primary School, also run by the PIME sisters.
“Just one year ago I had to push my daughter to go to school. She disliked it, because most of the time we could not help her do homework at home,” Biswas recalled. She and her husband are agricultural laborers who work all day in the fields.
Nowadays, Jacinta goes to school willingly, and even gets ready on her own. After school she goes to the day-care center, where the nuns help her with homework.
The Paharia make up 60 percent of the people in the parish territory. The government operates one high school and one primary school to serve local residents. The Church-run primary school, the only other school in the area, has long had relatively low attendance, but that is changing.
“This year we have expanded our primary school building to allot space for the increased number of students,” Father Julian Rozario, the parish priest, told UCA News. “We plan to set up two boarding hostels for poor boys and girls who live in distant villages and can´t afford education.”
Sister Baby Gomes, the St. Don Bosco headmistress, credits the rise in the number of those seeking admission to the first grade this year chiefly to the day-care center.
“Last year we had only 21 new students, but this year the number is 61,” she reported, adding that new students “do better in class and tutorials.”
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Sister Golapi Gomes helping children learn the alphabet |
According to the nun, local Paharia embraced Christianity in 1907, but only 14 students have passed the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examination, equivalent to graduating from high school to date.
PIME sisters have been working in the parish since 1978, but the day-care center reflects a more recent understanding of the link between poverty and the low rate of literacy among the Paharia.
Sister Golapi Gomes recounted: “We found very few Paharia kids went to school, and those who did go didn´t do well in examinations. We first thought maybe their parents don´t encourage them to go to school.”
Later on they “realized that children who don´t like school and can´t score well in examinations are deprived of proper care and nutritious food at home.”
In 2007, Brazilian Sister Eli Miranda Sexias proposed the day-care center as a way of getting more tribal children to attend school.
Parents pay 40 taka, about US$0.60, a month for each child they send. “We take this money to pay the maids we employ to look after the children,” the director explained. “It´s a great pleasure to see little kids studying and playing together.”
The arrangement also benefits the parents directly, especially mothers who work at the parish sewing center.
“In the past some working women used to bring their children to the sewing center,” said its director, Sister Philomena Gomes. “The kids disturbed their mothers, making noise and messing up the clothes. It was a serious problem for us, because it hampered us from delivering orders in time.”
She added that she is happy these women now can work attentively, knowing their children are taken care of at the day-care center.
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