With donations from the readers of the German newspaper “Recklinghäuser Zeitung” during the newspaper’s Christmas campaign, HOPE’87 was able to organize a “Mobile School” for underprivileged children in Bangladesh. This exceptional school was located in a bus equipped with school benches and a black board, offering space for 40 pupils. The bus moved around between seven places in Chittagong City between 7:30am and 9pm every day except Fridays to pick up students for a few hours of primary education classes. Most students of the Mobile School were either underprivileged children who lived in the streets or children whose parents worked as day labourers and who would otherwise not have had the possibility of sending their kids to school. The children enrolled in the “Mobile School” received education materials like books, pens, note books and school uniforms from HOPE’87.

Lessons in the “Mobile School” were usually given in “parking position”. However, once a month, the bus moved through the streets of Chittagong City during class, offering some fun and distraction for the children.

Check out this video to see more about our Mobile School in Chittagong: https://youtu.be/TCqbYOWJXKY

Project Background:

A recent child labour survey shows that 3,180,000 children are involved in child labour and domestic work. In Bangladesh 40% of all people are living in slum areas or without permanent shelter in the streets. Most of the slum children are forced to work in small factories and houses in order to earn their living. Thus, they are not able to go to school during daytime and grow up without having access to education and missing the chance to develop their skills, often remaining illiterate.