PROJECT BRIGHT LIGHT
Life Supports Program for Refugee Girls
Description
Our work – Project Bright Light
EarthChildren believes that education is a basic human right and that all the children deserve to the right and the freedom to obtain knowledge and wisdom through education and caring irrespective of their ethnicity, religion, gender or cultural background. Life Supports Program for Refugee Girls, known internally as Project Bright Light, is designed to provide orphan refugee girls with accommodation, daily living needs and education. The program has two subprograms: Accommodation and Education.
EarthChildren’s Home (our accommodation) is the first female-only shelter for orphans in the Bangladeshi Refugee Camp.
EarthChildren’s Happy Learning Centre (our school) is the first all-girl’s school in the camp; the first school to deliver a full syllabus in English; the first school to deliver an international curriculum; and the first school to teach beyond Year 5 in the Bangladeshi Refugee Camp.
Our children remain in the Life Supports for Refugee Girls Program until they complete Year 12 and are supported to further studies or into employment by EarthChildren.
EarthChildren’s Home
EarthChildren’s home accommodates 25 orphaned girls between the ages of 6 and 16. The children are provided with shelter, food, clothing, personal necessities and safety. The home is staffed by women in the community, called affectionately ‘EarthChildren Aunties’. The Aunties provide around the clock care to the children. The home also employs a cook and security guards. The Home is designed to provide a caring, loving and secure environment for the children to thrive in. EarthChildren provides transport for the girls who have joined the program from distant refugee camps so that they can connect with their previous caregivers every two weeks to continue to maintain and build the relationship between caregiver and child. At this stage, EarthChildren only accommodates children who have lost both their parents, but we will expand our services outside of this group in the future.
EarthChildren’s Happy Learning Centre
EarthChildren has partnered with an International School Provider to deliver an international curriculum in the English syllabus for the 25 refugee girls who reside at EarthChildren’s Home.
The school is intended to afford the girls a strong intellectual knowledge base from which to pursue meaningful future career opportunities in countries around the world and to facilitate non-humanitarian migration pathways out of the camp. The school provides education from Year 1 to Year 12 and all children are required to start school from Year One despite age. Our classes are equipped with two teachers and three teachers aides. The teachers’ aides are in training to become the primary school teachers at our all-boys school that EarthChildren has planned to launch for orphaned refugee boys in 2023.
Summary
The foundational aim of our holistic program is to drive long-term generational development and change so that future generations of Rohingya refugee children are not exposed to child labour, sexual exploitation, and child marriage. Education strengthens community resilience and empowerment by providing appropriate knowledge, skills, and wisdom for a productive and independent life. A comprehensive and full school education supported by the stability of a strong home foundation will enlighten the future of these children, eradicating poverty and bring about significant social change.