Girls Education in Tea Garden

Malala Program in the tea gardens, Sylhet, Bangladesh

Watch on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0wp-0iGGro

As per request, in February 2024, I left chittagong, and took a train up north, to the beautiful greenest state of Bangladesh, sylhet to meet up with Sawon. Here we witnessed one of the most heartbreaking existing capitalism model in the world - the Tea Gardens. An exploiting chain of business that's inherited from the British Colonial period for over 170 years. The British East India Company and later the British Colonial Government started the plantation of tea in regions like India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, and other colonies during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Large plantations were developed to meet the growing demand for tea in Europe and to compete with Chinese tea production. Initiated by Lord Hudson, the tea workers were brought from the 7 sisters’ state in north eastern India, to grow tea in the region, including the subcontinent of Bangladesh. Following the tea garden payment tradition, the tea workers still make a daily wage as low as 1 US dollar.

Inspired by the resilience and activism of Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai, The Malala Program in Bangladesh focuses on empowering girls from the tea garden communities. This initiative aims to provide education, leadership training, and socio-economic support to girls living in the tea gardens. Malala project offers after-school programs for girls in tea garden, in each school, 20 girls are selected to participate in the program. The volunteers will go into each secondary school and find those who are lagging behind in their studies, the goal is to help them with their studies to prevent them from dropping out of schools.