Frequently
Asked Questions
Because we frequently receive the same
types of questions, this is an attempt to consolidate and answer as
many as possible in advance.
General
What does Monayr Asha mean?
Monayr Asha comes from Bengali which is the official language
of Bangladesh and also spoken in West Bengal (eastern-most province of
India). Literally, Monayr Asha means Hearts Desire or Deepest Desire.
What does the MAA logo mean ?
The blue lotus signifies the wisdom of knowledge. The hand
represents the hand of MAA nurturing and supporting a child's quest for
this knowledge. It also represents the hands of the children holding
the power of knowledge in their hands. Where do the administrative fees come from?
Every charity has administrative fees that are unavoidable.
For example, admin fees for MAA include incorporating it and fees for
setting up the website. MAA is meeting these admin fees through
personal donations from family and friends with money donated
specifically for this purpose. 100% of the money raised through our
events and online donations will go towards actual
charitable work.
Is MAA based only in Bangladesh?
Currently, MAA is based in Bangladesh and Uganda. However,
MAA is
hoping to expand into other projects in other parts of the
world helping to provide a sustainable way of reaching out to children
and their communities and helping them access the power of knowledge.
The primary goal of MAA is to work with underprivileged children
regardless of race or religion.
Why was this particular location chosen?
The idea of starting a charitable organization to support
educating children in developing countries came out of a combination of
experiences and active conversations. Fueled by Katrina Brandstadt's
experience working in Uganda, and Kashfi
Mahmud's
background in Bangladesh, they formulated and implemented an idea to
use their personal resources to work towards social justice in projects
that would have long-reaching and long-lasting sustainable effects.
During a visit to
Chittagong, Bangladesh, Kashfi visited a now-government-run public
school, originally established by her grandfather for
the purpose of educating under-privileged children. During the trip,
Kashfi realized that most of the children supposed to be attending the
school were unable to attend due to financial difficulties, although
education was free. That is
when she came up with the idea of raising money for scholarships to
support some of the children. Thus, Chittagong, Bangladesh was a
logical choice for the first project of the MAA Foundation.
How many children and what age range will be
supported by MAA Foundation?
For the first MAA project, twenty children have been
selected
for
the scholarships (2 centers each with ten children per teacher and
supervisor). All the children were aged around 7 and started in
elementary school. For more information, please click here.
Financial
How much money has to be raised to help the
children in Bangladesh?
There is no real limit to how much we can help these
children. Any amount raised will go a long way, as only $ 2.00 CAN are
sufficient to support a child for a day. Our aim is to raise $ 17,000
CAN,
allowing for 20 children to be sustained for a year. For more
information, please visit the Project
Bangladesh page.
Is part of the money raised going to the
family?
The money raised aims to benefit these children in their
overall life. Although the families do not receive direct cash
benefits, the children receive nutritious meals provided by MAA, as
well as health check-ups that are not the norm for those communities.
Also, we provide support to the parents with monthly meetings
addressing their needs.
If a fundraising event can only support the
children's education for a certain period of time, how are you going to
ensure that
they will have a chance to complete their studies?
Our aim is to hold ongoing events to continue the
support for these children's education, should they choose to go
further with their education. In the event that a child has completed
their formal education or chooses to discontinue with their schooling,
another child will be chosen to support. We believe that even one year
of education will open up more opportunities for these children, and
hopefully give them a broader perspective of what options are open to
them.
Projects
Are locations chosen from a UN list of
most impoverished schools, or are they personal projects of people who
sit on the board?
Site visits were done personally by Kashfi Mahmud. We
chose
areas where
no other NGO´s (with similar education projects) were
working. There is a lot of area where work needs to be done, and lots
of NGO´s are already active, so it seems redundant to be
working in an area where others are already active, whereas there are
so many that have no options. So that was our priority. Another issue
was capacity. For example, we chose areas that we felt we would be more
capable of working with. In some areas, there were heroin dens, etc.
Given that our NGO is much smaller, we feel that we would be unable to
cope with situations such as those, so we remained in areas that were
more family oriented.
Are students chosen based on merit,
relative impoverishment, with care to balance gender, race, religion,
or are they personal friends and relatives of charity owners?
The first criterion was obviously location. Second was income
level and we
work with the ultra poor. Most of the children's families are brick
breakers. For example, some of the children are partial
orphans, ie. no father or no mother, or one parent is an invalid,
etc. The third criterion was age. We work with a very small group,
and picked children of a certain age group only (at project begin all
children were aged around 7. Most people
have no idea of their age or their date
of birth). In one area, that was sufficient to select a group of
children. In
the other area, we had a 3 round interview with the children. It was
loosely based on a criterion evaluation drawn up by a team of 2 (Jaddon
Park and another associate pursuing a Masters in Child
Psychology).
Another point taken into consideration was that the
child had never previously been to school and did not have any possible
future opportunity of going to school. In that case, it automatically
balanced gender.
What happens to the remaining children in
the village who do not receive anything?
The remaining children in the area go on as before. In some
cases, we provide some extra care. For example, in Battiari, we have a
boy who used to go to school (he is about 12), but after his mother
died, his extended family pulled him out of school. We did some
mediation with the family, and arranged for him to be back at school...
and since he was quite behind, we arranged for him to come to our
program and sit with the teacher for an hour during the period that the
other children are there for free play. We are trying to do the best we
can with our extremely limited resources, but since our resources ARE
limited, the support we can provide is also limited. Encouragingly, the
community understands that, and simply supports us in working with the
community. We hope that in the future there will be more possibilities
to extend our activities.
Is MAA excluding boys and choosing mainly
girls, or is MAA excluding one religion to the detriment of another?
We have not picked girls over boys. It has happened more
organically,
since the boys are given preference by their own family, which
automatically disqualifies them from our program. We do not promote any
one religion, rather teach tolerance and understanding and respect
everyone's beliefs.
How is the work undertaken in Bangladesh?
Are there MAA volunteers in Bangladesh?
MAA collaborates with a local NGO that is long established in
the
area of Chittagong. The NGO oversees the project and sends back reports
to MAA, along with reports from the teacher and MAA appointed Program
Coordinator. There are no current volunteers of MAA in Bangladesh.
However, Jaddon Park
and Kashfi Mahmud
have both spent months at a time in Bangladesh working with the
projects.
Updates
Is there a way to be updated on
the status
of these children?
Our goal is to keep you as informed as we are ourselves. We
hope to keep the website as updated as possible and have regular
updates of the
children sent to us, which we will put on the web as soon as received.
Since we are run completely by volunteers, we do face challenges at
times. You can also sign up for our newsletter here
to stay informed about our activities.
