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Nippon Foundation donates USD 2 million to BRAC

The Nippon Foundation, a Japanese private non-profit organisation, will donate USD 2 million (over BDT 169 million) for BRAC to scale up its education programme for the displaced Rohingya and host communities’ children in Cox's Bazar. The grant will help build 50 two-story prefabricated movable steel structures to be used as learning centres for 8,000 displaced Rohingya children. Besides, 100 pre-primary learning centres will also be built for the host community’s children.

BRAC and The Nippon Foundation announced the partnership at a press conference today on Wednesday (11 December) at BRAC Centre in Dhaka city. Chairman of The Nippon Foundation, Yohei Sasakawa, Executive Director of BRAC, Asif Saleh, Director of BRAC Education Programme, Dr Safiqul Islam, officials of the two organisations and Japanese Embassy in Bangladesh were present at the event.

Chairman Yohei Sasakawa said, "The objective of our initiative is to create education opportunities for the displaced Rohingya children so that they can also learn alongside the host community’s children. We hope that the displaced Rohingya children will be able to continue learning as they return to their homeland."

BRAC’s Executive Director Asif Saleh said, "55 per cent of the people who came from Myanmar are children. So we are focusing on their education."

Officials of BRAC informed the press that right from the beginning of the new influx of the displaced Rohingya people into Bangladesh in 2017, BRAC undertook the education programme for their children as the largest partner of the government in this regard. The learning curriculum for the displaced Rohingya children includes pre-primary education, alphabets and numbers, life-saving information, psychological counselling and life skills development. BRAC is also developing education materials for classes I-IV for the displaced Rohingya children.

Currently, over 61,000 children of 4-14 years of age are receiving basic education in its 759 learning centres at the Rohingya camps in Ukhya and Teknaf sub districts of Cox's Bazar. Fifty-one per cent of these children are girls. 722 children are disabled among them. Also, 57 per cent members of the managing committees of these learning centres are women.

The separate 100 pre-primary learning centres BRAC will build with The Nippon Foundation's support will accommodate 3,000 host community children of 5-6 years of age.