Alingan Foundation

We are overjoyed to welcome back beloved Davide Majeli from Italy after three years. We are very glad to see him back in good health. He was deeply missed. We are overjoyed that he has returned to us. We are very grateful to him and to his colleagues and students for their continued love and support for the Alingan Foundation. We anticipate seeing Davide annually.

Welcome reception:

There were happy and excited faces!

The children of Alingan Foundation were ready to welcome the founder of the project Mr. Palash Roy, after 2 years and with him, one of the supporters Mr. Detlef Schultze on 20th December 2019. After lots of preparation and initiatives, the children made the reception memorable. And how well they did! They presented the best of their talents performing, singing, dancing and so on wearing colorful festive dresses. After a short motivational speech by Mr. Roy and Mr. Schultze, the children were provided with some clothes which were brought by them from Belgium. Food and drinks were also provided at the end of the occasion. One of the children led the whole occasion.

Afterwards, with a group of children, they visited some of the children’s families in the slum. They live in a massive slum in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh where about 100,000 people live. It was shocking to see their poor living conditions. The whole family lives in one room with some sleeping on a bed and the rest sleeping on the floor. Water penetrates when it rains. Some children drop out from school and start child labour for the family to survive. Some girls get married very young.

After visiting the families, it was time to leave for the day – but how? The children seemed to keep them forever. However, they promised to visit them again soon.

Excursion:
Another day full of joy and happiness as promised!

This took the form of an excursion with the children to the planetarium in Dhaka. We all traveled to that place by bus, and on the way, there was lots of fun, dancing and singing and so on. In the planetarium, they watched a short documentary about the struggles to make Bangladesh free from west Pakistan under the leadership of Sheikh Mujubor Rahman, the father of the present prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina. Then they watched an exciting show teaching about the universe of galaxies, stars and black holes in space.

The children are always glad to take part in different activities that bring them out of the slum for a few hours or a day.
Again, it was time to say goodbye as they had to return to Belgium in the evening of the same day. It was so hard for them to leave as children never let them go.

After the visits to the children, it was crystal clear that those children need help for their living and education as well as they need love and care. The children didn’t want to leave Mr. Roy and Mr. Schultze because they experienced love, care and freedom, which is not a regular occurrence in their daily life in the slum.

The children are blessed to have had Mr. Davide Majeli with them twice in the last two years. He volunteered the children of the project for their education and conducted different social activities with lots of fun and pleasure. He also provided school stationery and food to the children during his visits. It was a great chance for the children to learn about foreign culture, sharing ideas and learning new things which would encourage them to continue their education and will broaden their knowledge with intensive social and moral impact. The children are very interested and enthusiastic to learn from Mr. Majeli.

It was like a dream for the children to have a brand-new computer for their studies. Mr. Majeli and his colleagues from Italy contributed to buy the computer. Children were thrilled to have such a very useful source which would help them enormously in learning. Teachers can download all the education materials and video tutorials such as learning English, good manners, health and hygiene and so on. They will be able to present all the video tutorials to the children using the computer.

We thank to Mr. Davide Majeli from the bottom of our hearts for the contribution through his colleagues and making the dream of the children come true through his direct assistance of buying the computer in Dhaka. I am sure the children will have the chance again and again to find him with them and the possibility of his colleagues who will be able to visit them one day.

Mr. Davide volunteered at Alingan Foundation from July 1st to July 25th. He flew to Dhaka on vacation and planned to help out at teaching centers and events that are aimed towards helping the deprived and underprivileged children of the Bangladeshi society. He is a resident of Sicily, Italy and a teacher of Hotel Management by profession who also has a big heart for helping out the poor in the poorest countries of the world.

Davide arrived in Dhaka on the last week of June, 2017. He found out about Alingan foundation’s volunteering options through project’s website. Upon informing the staffs of the foundation beforehand, Davide was greeted heartily by the children on his arrival in the first day. The children were delighted to find new company at the project and were excited and curious to see Davide. All they could wonder about was what they will learn from our friend about his culture and his country. The children prepared a poster for him with pictures of pizza and the Italian flag, the only thing the children knew about Italian culture. Davide was overjoyed to be gifted with such a simple, yet witty present from the kids. On the first day, Davide also brought chocolates for the children which they were very happy to receive from our friend.

Davide helped out regularly at the project by aiding the instructors in helping the children with their homework. Many children are sent off to work by their parents when they go home, so when they come to Alingan it is easier for them to finish their homework. More children were excited to come now that Davide was teaching English every week and also sharing about his culture. He kindly donated stationaries for the children, pens and pencils of different colors and styles. The children loved his teachings and presents. On one occasion Davide brought bread a Nutella, a classic Italian snack for school children. The kids had a blast as they indulged in the experience of having an Italian snack for the first time in their lives. Davide mainly taught English but on occasions he also taught the children a few Italian words and recorded them on video to send their wishes to his friends and family back in Italy. The children learnt a great deal about technology from Davide as he used to take pictures of the children with his phone. The children would look at awe at how fast sharing files is. They were blown away by the fact that you could take a picture in Bangladesh and it could be sent to Italy in seconds. During lessons, it was not only

Davide teaching the children English, but the children were also teaching him Bengali words from their school books. Everyone learnt a little bit from each other!

It was finally time to say farewell to Davide on the 25th of July. The kids were not happy to see our Italian friend go. They would certainly love for Davide to stay much longer and teach them all about his culture. For one last time, Davide read a story book to the children. It was the book “A chair for Baby Bear”. The children sat around him eagerly, and were mesmerized by the story as Ms. Lopa, who is a volunteer at Alingan, translated the story for the children. After the reading session it was the children’s turn to present something to Davide. The children prepared dances, songs, poems and plays to present to Davide on his final day at Alingan. It was a new experience for Davide to be exposed to so much Bengali culture at once. One by one the kids presented their craft to Davide. He really enjoyed the performances. Davide also brought snacks for the children on his last day to the project. Cakes, biscuits and cola were distributed among the children. It was a great experience of giving and sharing between our friend and the kids.

Finally, it was time for the children to bid farewell to Davide. They prepared a letter and a poster saying goodbye to Davide. The kids asked the instructors beforehand to translate their goodbye message in Italian, a true mark of influence left into the hearts of the children by Davide, which made the farewell of our Italian friend heartfelt and memorable. Davide plans on visiting Bangladesh again next year, and the kids look forward to meeting him again and strengthen their intercultural bonds.

Captain David Ring, and his friends came to the Alingan project for the second time on the 4th of June 2017. Despite their busy flying schedule, working for Emirates Airlines, our friends took time off from their busy routines and decided to drop by our foundation to spend the day in teaching and playing with the Children. David brought a lot of books and toys for the children, along with clothes for donation to the kids and their respective families.

It was Anna Marija’s first time in Bangladesh. She and her friend, Michelle were very excited to meet the children. They offered to read stories to the children despite the language barrier. Through sign language and sweet but troubled attempts at understanding each other’s languages, the children and the guests finally broke the ice and took off with a wonderful reading session. They were being read Jack the Rabbit and his adventures with his grandpa. Later they took pictures with the kids and introduced them to the popular social media app, “Snapchat”. The kids had an amazing time checking out the different options and features added to their faces on the photos. Lots of laughs and giggles all around the room! After a session of English reading, it was the children’s turn to test our guests’ Bengali! Anna and Michelle had an amazing time learning some new bangla words from the elementary bangla children’s books and played word games and animal sound games with the kids.

David, on the other hand, pulled out a “where’s Waldo?” book and challenged all the boys to spot Waldo in each of the pictures in the book. With a feeling of competition and an opportunity to impress David, the boys all jumped at once to the book to find Waldo on the page, and surely enough, they found him! The kids were very excited to meet our friends and were so happy with the new gifts that they brought with them. All of them had a new book in hand and were pressing the buttons, and turning the pages, their eyes glazing with happiness and curiosity.

After few hours of laughter and learning and kind donations, it was time for David and his friends to leave, as they prepare for their journey out of Bangladesh. The children bade them farewell; it is never enough for them to spend some quality time with these kind friends, their hearts asking for more time. With hearty goodbyes from the kids, David and his friends left, leaving behind the kids waiting to see them again in the future one day. It was a great opportunity for these children to have an experience of interacting with foreigners, for the first time for many of them. In a way, these friendly meetings are shaping the minds of the children and are preparing them for possible future communications.

Tracey Humphreys from Australia and Theophilus from Singapore recently visited the project.

Tracey was visiting Bangladesh for a short period of time. Even in her busy schedule while in Bangladesh, she was interested in visiting the children of the Alingan Foundation. She spent a wonderful time with the children, teaching them origami. She was impressed with the project. She found Alingan to be a safe means of supporting and contributing to the children’s education. She let her family and friends know about the project via social media. She expressed an interest in visiting the children again on her next visit to Bangladesh.

Theophilus came to know the project and was interested in visiting it before leaving for Singapore. He is passionately interested in children’s welfare and especially for children who are underprivileged. His interest in children prompted him to visit the children of the Alingan Foundation. He provided some school stationary for them and spent a pleasant and fun time with them. He enjoyed seeing their smiling faces.

It was a great pleasure for the children to find Tracy and Theoplhilus with them. We hope to have regular visitors and volunteers who would benefit the children by expanding their knowledge and enabling them to become first class citizens.

It was a great pleasure to find our foreign visitors David Ring, captain of Emirates Airlines and Sharon with the children of the project. Captain David has supported children of different projects in Bangladesh now for many years by donating items, inviting people to visit and volunteering for the children. He has also personally sponsored a child in Dhaka for several years. His kind heart for under privileged children is highly appreciated.

They donated some clothes, stationery and other necessities to the children and also visited a few families of their families. The children were very excited to be with them. They had a pleasant time and they performed some recreational activities for them.

Visiting and volunteering for the children can be a great part of support in making a difference to the quality of children’s lives. The children would be blessed to find regular visitors and volunteers with them to let their knowledge and talent expand.