June 6th-8th, 2010
Homma Kancho with the younger girls in front of new facility.
For the last four years, AHAN has been involved with the building of the Madrasa Islamic Orphanage and School for Girls in Dhaka, Bangladesh. This past spring the five story building was finally finished and Homma Kancho traveled to Bangladesh to check on the completed project.
Currently there are on average 370 girls living at the orphanage and about 40% of them are orphans. The rest of the girls do have families, but their families are so poor they cannot take care of them. Many years ago, the original school was burned to the ground and when Homma Sensei was introduced to the orphanage four years ago, the girls were living and studying their lessons in a tarp covered make-shift structure. The goal for the cleric teachers was to build one floor per year, a goal in which they achieved this year with AHAN’s support.
Homma Kancho has visited the construction site regularly over the last four years and has helped supply badly needed building materials for the construction. AHAN has also supported the Madrasa Orphanage with 500 kilos of rice per month and other needed medical and daily product supplies.
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- Homma Kancho with Madrasa cleric teachers.
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- A simple lunch of soup and rice.
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- A smile, for the first time in the past four years.
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- It is custom for the older girls to wear berka, however you can still see the smiles in their eyes.
Nippon Kan Vice President and AHAN International Program Director, Emily Busch is planning to visit Bangladesh at the end of July to check on what might be needed for the next step of development in the Madrasa Orphanages educational programs for the girls.
Homma Kancho was only in Bangladesh for three days this visit, but with Homma Kancho’s energy, we were able to accomplish an amazing number of projects and activities.
Thank you Homma Kancho for coming to visit us in Bangladesh.
Written by
Maji Sarkar
Bangadesh AHAN Coordinator
*Notes from Editor
AHAN has also supported the Dharmarajika Buddhist Orphanage and School for Boys for the last four years by supplying 500 kilos of rice per month, medical, sports and educational supplies. AHAN and Nippon Kan General Headquarters also donated and shipped 50 used computers to the Dharmarajika Orphanage that were used to open a successful computer lab at the school.
Currently the Dharmarajika Orphanage has become more stable financially with support from many other local and international organizations; especially international organizations in Japan.
AHAN has always defined itself as an organization that offers more triage level of aid to projects and organizations with little means of support. A project term is usually one to three years, depending on the independent development of the project.
Now that the Dharmarajika Orphanage has become increasingly self sufficient, AHAN has closed this chapter of support. The allocated resources will be applied to ongoing and new projects for 2010 and beyond.