Bangladesh, 2019 - Humanitarian response, Rohingya refugee crisis

UN Women Asia & the Pacific
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Bangladesh, 2019 - Humanitarian response, Rohingya refugee crisis
Bangladesh, 2019 - Humanitarian response, Rohingya refugee crisis

27 year old Shamima Bibi is currently running 3 school for women and is in the process of opening a 4th. She opened the first school 7 months ago and currently has around 50 students, the youngest of whom is 13, the oldest is 60 years old. Many Rohingya women and girls don't attend educational classes because the classes are mixed gender. The students say that in Myanmar there was no need for education, but here in the camps, to get basic services they need to have education. In Myanmar, Shamima risked her life, attending Sittwe university undercover, dressing as a Buddhist woman. In the camps she works for a Rohingya women's rights organization. After coming to Bangladesh she worked to convince the Rohingya men and women that Islam does not dictate that women cannot get an education. In Myanmar it was thought that after a woman gets her first period she cannot leave the house, but after coming to Bangladesh it is becoming more widely understood that women have to just wear hijab and burka when the leave their homes. Her family told her that "If you are not educated, you are blind. You can't understand the world". "I want to show the Myanmar government that we can do anything. If I can teach the women something, then when we go back they will be shocked. I want to show them that our women are confident and can do anything" When she first started recruiting women to come to her classes the men and women gave them a hard time, asking why education was important. She started with only 5 students and now when she is out and about in the camps, so many women request to join that she has started having to turn people away. When there is trouble at home, she will go to the students house to convince the husband why it's important that his wife is educated. Right now these schools are funded directly from Shamima's pocket. She will buy one notebook and tear out the pages and distribute the individual pages to each student to use. Shamima dreams of all Rohingya women to be e

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Taken on: July 10, 2019
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Sets appears in:   • Humanitarian response, Rohingya refugee crisis, Bangladesh   
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