Chakar School (school on wheels) is an innovative initiative of ‘It’s Humanity Foundation (IHF)’, a social welfare organization that started its journey in 2010 and was established from a passion to help the underprivileged children with their education.
The concept of Chakar School is that the students don’t need to come to school. But the school, on a bus, itself will travel and pick them up and drop them when class ends.
Although the organization was founded in 2010 by Mohammad Adnan Hossain, it officially started operating in 2012. It is currently running three basic programs - education, empowerment and development. Under the program of education this welfare organization provides free education to the deprived and disadvantaged children. Chakar School is one of the projects of the education program that aims at providing education to the children of disadvantaged communities. The project is funded by Community Partners International (CPI) and TAO Foundation.
After reaching Chakar School at Diabari area of Mirpur, an ongoing interactive session between the children and their teacher Gazi Fahim drew attention of this correspondent. A total of 30 students are currently obtaining free pre-primary education through Chakar School. The students receive academic and digital lessons along with extra-curricular activities here on scheduled days.
The classes are conducted and supervised by well-trained teachers, trainees and volunteers. Every student is provided with a tablet so that they can learn while playing different cognitive games. The students are also provided with snacks between their classes. Parent-Teacher meetings are organized once every month to let the parents know about their children’s progress.
The students here are provided all the facilities needed for their comprehensive growth. The parents along with the children are also provided with basic needs from time to time. After one year these children will be enrolled into various government and NGO schools and remain under the observation of IHF. After the enrollment the child’s expense will be borne through the ‘Sponsor a Child’ program.
Mohammad Adnan Hossain, founder of IHF said, the idea of Chakar School occurred to me in 2015. Gradually we sketched out the whole plan and started looking for sponsors. We wanted to launch the school in March 2020 but due to the pandemic the whole country went under lockdown.
“However, despite the adversity we launched Chakar School with preparations of safety guidelines in July 2020 on a five-month trial basis. The school is currently running on full swing after receiving great response from parents and children. The initial plan of providing education to a total of 120 students on four locations across the capital will be implemented after all the schools reopen. The appreciation that we have received for this initiative really motivates us to continue with this kind of works,” he added.
The students are welcomed everyday by the Chakar School team with masks, face shield, infrared thermometer, sanitizers and disinfectant sprays. They ensure that health guidelines are maintained before the students enter the class. Some students are so excited about the class that sometimes they come to the school one or two hours before the scheduled time, said Mir Akib, Trainee, Chakar School.
Besides Chakar School, IHF runs several other projects under different programs.
Project Alok in collaboration with Daraz works for the welfare of special children. In this project attempts are made to identify the problem of learning disability among children and provide solutions. Project Ankur- works for the brain development of children. After studying the behavior of a child, the concerned team tries to create new content and implement activity based lessons.
IHF’s empowerment program provides three to six months long crafting training to women.
Their development program, Center for Youth Development (CFYD) focuses on providing personal and professional development training on communication skills, public speaking skills, writing skills, networking skills etc. to the youth. They also work in different other sectors along with these projects.