User:Nowazesh/sandbox

It is said ‘a child without education is like a bird without wings.’ Unfortunately, in our country, education is determined by the factors like wealth, income and social status of the family. Bidyanondo is an organisation that stands up against disparity in educational opportunity in our country today. Bidyanondo, as the name suggests, is all about learning while having fun. It is a non-profit organisation which aim to provides fundamental education to underprivileged  students along with  library facility for general readers. Bidyanondo is not a complete school, rather a complementary teaching center which helps students discover their own potential and encourages them to learn. Kishor Kumar Das, the man behind the idea, initiated the project in December 2013, reminiscing about his childhood days. ‘I was not a good student and hardly manage to pass my school exams,’ he remembers. ‘I was always afraid of everything related to school and had no interest in it. But I realised the importance  of school when my education was halted after SSC due to financial constraints.’

It was during that time that he decided to start an institution that will bring changes the the education scenario in the country, especially for the underprivileged. This fantastic  initiative started with one project coordinator along with four others to lead the branches. All of them had the experience and zeal to take the project further. Bidyanondo now has three branches with different profiles – Narayanganj branch is located in a very remote area with 125 school students. Chittagong branch runs the university admission program and has 60 students. The Dhaka branch focuses on everything from basic education to coaching for university admission. The students are selected after verifying their financial situation. There are about 300 students in total at present in the programmes that run in all three campuses every day of the week. And the people who make this operation so smooth are the teachers and volunteers. ‘We have a group of dedicated teachers and volunteers,’ says Kishor. ‘They have impressive academic background and are hardworking, honest and responsible.’ The teachers  share a special kind of relationship with the students and try to inspire and encourage them towards achieving their goals. Students are often seen to share their thoughts, problems from academic and personal lives with the teachers, turning Bidyanondo into a beautiful learning experience. Bidyanondo also has library facilities for those who love to read. The library has about 7,000 books and requires no membership or registration hassles. When asked about the response so far, Kishor says, ‘the response has been extremely good. We have 300 regular students and serve thousands of readers. We want more participation but as we are focusing more on activity than publicity, it does get a little difficult to spread the word. However, we are happy with the progress and don’t mind going slow.’ The most astonishing aspect about Bidyanondo is that the programme is absolutely free. There are no fees, registration charge or membership required to enroll in the programme. Even the materials, books, notes – they all come without any charge. Bidyanondo also aims to open one branch in every division and online schools for remote areas by next year. The Bidyanondo team is  currently working on Shikkok.com which will have video tutorial of the courses that Bidyanondo offers and  they plan to distribute the recorded tutorials to villages where there are no good teachers or internet facility. ‘Other than academic coaching we plan to run professional training courses to build skilled teachers,’ says Kishor. The Bidyanondo team is trying hard to overcome its main challenge which is establishment of a financial source, but that is not stopping them from achieving their goal – spreading the joy of education.