AS in PakistanIn January 2015, Amarok Society opened its first school in Pakistan, partnering with The Roshni Welfare Organization. Under the inspiring leadership of President Syeda Farah Azmi, RWO works toward empowerment of women through education and advocacy programmes, initiatives demanding genuine courage. Pakistan is another most seriously under-educated country: it’s no coincidence that it was also recently ranked as the most dangerous country in the world.

Our new school is located in Sialkot, in the Northeast of the country, in an area under Taliban control. The school opened just a few weeks after the tragic massacre by the Taliban of a public school in Peshawar, Pakistan, which killed 144 people. Following a threat by the Taliban that more schools would be targeted, the Amarok Society Roshni Women’s School was for some time the only one that remained open in the country, which is a testament to the courage and devotion that these new Amarok Society mothers and teachers have to the betterment of their families, community and country.

Staff PromotionsFollowing the resignation of the former District Coordinator of Dhaka, Mahabub Ahmad, three of the teachers of Dhaka were promoted to replace him, each inheriting particular responsibilities within the organization. Nazma Akter Shikha is responsible for office management and the development of English within the organization; Alpona Akter is responsible for ensuring quality of teaching as well as professional development; and Rohima Khan is in charge of community relations and social activism. Each is highly deserving of her promotion, and, interestingly, each of these women was at one time told by people around her that she was incapable of ever joining Amarok Society. Everyone in Amarok Society is delighted to have such strong women taking on roles of leadership, and fulfilling those roles so well.

Shikha attending a teacher training session

The Arambug Free School Library, in Khulna. The woman on the far right is Rahima, the teacher of the school.

LibraryThanks to the generous donation of Roger Dowker, from Mission, BC, we have been able to open a community library in the Arambug Free School, in Khulna, Bangladesh. Everyone from the community is able

to borrow books, checking them out from the librarian, who is a mother-teacher from the Arambug Free School. Every six months the librarian changes, and becomes a new mother-teacher. The library is proving to be extremely popular, and an

invaluable resource in a country without public libraries.

One mother selects a book while Bulbuly, the current librarian, checks it out in the library log book.

The kindness wall. On the right, in the green hijab, stands Anjira, whose creation the kindness wall is.

Kindness WallAnjira Begum, the assistant teacher at the Libby Women’s School of Khulna, took it upon herself to turn the outside wall of the school into a ‘kindness wall.’ Under the supervision of one of the teacher-mothers, people leave items such as clothes, purses, and so forth that they no longer need hanging on the wall, and anyone else who wants to take them may. This is another way that this school helps to foster a sense of community and social responsibility in the neighbourhood.

Anjira