Bright days of Discovery Weeks in Bangladesh

10 April 2022

I am going to reflect on Discovery Weeks at American International School of Dhaka over 3 weeks. This has been a worthwhile journey. Since I looked for an organization focusing on youth education, I followed and interned with JUMP! This opportunity is something I had never thought of - going out of Southeast Asia, to a good school, being a facilitator. I now can officially call myself an educator. This is the first time that I am in such a long period program with JUMP! but I carried along little stress and expectation. This readiness drove me to cope with anything possible. I came to Bangladesh with a light bag while my brain, body and energy had been drained from Covid. After complex logistics and visa application, it was such my great gratitude to finally land here!

us -- time travel to the end of the program :D

I 'd watched some travel vlogs, documentaries and articles about Bangladesh before I came to get familiarized with its culture and society. Real life is more bizarre than the media, with overwhelming construction from the airport to central Dhaka. Any moment I went outside, dust floated in my eyes and eyes, people's noises, movement, sweat, the heat, the traffic. I felt this set me ready to come back to Vietnam after 2.5 years not hearing honk.

a common job, collecting cut paper for sales, very low paid in Old Dhaka

For safety sake, we always stayed in Baridhara area and after 1 week, I still had no connection with the life of the people here. JUMP! team had a tour into Old Dhaka to see how real life is in Bangladesh. We explored some interesting architecture, old buildings being used for different purposes allowed by the government. Some has been turned into houses, dormitory for people and students. The local can turn old buildings into temples so that the government cannot demolish them. We visited church, mosque and discussed around Hinduism, Muslim and Christianity. Conversation on religion is always fascinating for me as an atheist, slightly Buddhist.

you need to come to feel this area with your 5 senses.

I admire the workplace, the slogans, project posters, visuals embedded all around in AISD. All reflect values of lifelong learning, action for social justice and community development of the school. The program aims to strengthen knowledge and awareness of AISD students regarding sustainable development goals.

inspiration fills in the space

let me show you another interesting poster...

accept the incomplete and make constant improvement

At JUMP!, we always have pieces of leadership, community building and personal discovery for students to gain a sense of self understanding before understanding the world. Or when it comes to design thinking and social innovation, it is crucial to empathize with themselves and their own community in order to empathize with other individuals as their project target audience.

I worked with grade 7 and grade 9 on SDG 5: Gender Equality and SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, respectively. This is my first time to become a mentor of young students to design social impact projects. I believe that individual impact is powerful to create systemic change. I am able to water some seeds, which could grow and impart further impacts in their journey.

a board storm corner, we have lots of materials for School program.

First week

My respected teacher told me "don't forget to involve the role of men into the mission of empowering the women'' prior to my travel. Then I was so happy to coach a team of all boys who wanted to educate other men in Bangladesh to empathize with women and explore their potential. This group works under the SDG 5.5: ensure participation in leadership and decision making. This group finally scoped down their expected beneficiaries to specific demography, unlike their initial purpose-global people.

yay, seeing their work on board!

The second group aims to use social media and fun educational methods to raise self-esteem of women and be strong to confront social stigma. This contributes to the target 5.B: promote women empowerment through technology. On Day 5, all groups showcased their passionate work in a marketplace, time to engage with the public! We invited parents, related organizations to SDGs and school teachers to visit that allow students to present and interact with.

a booth of my second group, some interactive activities to exchange ideas

We must follow Child Protection Policy thus no photos of students are allowed to take/ post. Let's have a look at a students' reflection after 5 days.

she is the most quiet person in my group, and she wrote her critical thoughts down!

Second week

Grade 9 has a totally different communication style. I learnt to better my questions, thinking about the feasibility of the project, concrete activities of the project, short term and long-term goal, presentation of content and proposal. We adjusted to dedicate more time for project groups so they could discuss and properly walk through phases of design thinking. Also, we emphasized that they need to do research to have a grounding knowledge of current situations of SDG, problems, and solutions to identify the gap.

no more market place for grade 9 group, but become Ted talk in front of expert

One takeaway to facilitate design thinking, ask students to solve my personal problem! This group are more aware of empathy and how to ask questions than the previous one. They asked me thoughtful questions to understand my needs and the reason behind. So, here is the poster I brought home crossing thousands miles away!

everyone seems to like prototype, however, I need to push them to talk first. :) and raised the importance of understanding the right problem. Design is for a purpose!

My two grade 9 groups look at SDG 11A: strong national and regional development planning and SDG 11.4 support least developed countries in sustainable and resilient building. The first group has a big target, to build a partnership strategy with (BRAC) and a literacy organization to educate potential employees to move to a new economic zone for work, instead of Dhaka. These two organizations recruit workers for the city so the team wants to train them how to better raise awareness of the people and choose alternative employment. The new area is being built by a mega project, conducted by a students' parent, so the team wants to leverage on this amazing resource to reduce the burden of workforce, traffic, population, and infrastructure to Dhaka.

after identifying the problem, time to ideate and think about what could work!

Their presentation does not clearly explain how they as a team get involved by what they have since mostly they refer to the available mega project. I told the team to show the original ideas of your team, with your young minds, show what things you can do.

Coming to the second team, they were a bit lost at first as not sure of what disaster to choose, and what they think to do is of no special to some of the existing solutions. A key note "if you don't really connect to any of the disasters, go for something else that you deeply care about." Then they found their silver lining to intervene. They want to fund raises on a regular basis through dancing events through which tickets are sold with a clear message of the cause behind the fund.

I will buy this ticket for sure!

The fund goes to Habitat for Humanity that has a team of house builders and proven evidence of past achievements. In the long run, they want to join the Youth leadership program of the same organization to gain skills and volunteer for good contribution in the same target.

This is what I have improved about facilitation:

Have a disciplined tone to let students behave, listen and participate. It takes time to remember their names, have them quiz me at the end of 5 days, then read part of their personality, attention, and what interests them. I am not their teacher but I can create a space that students feel safe to discuss and learn from each other. I observe how my teammates run energizers, not my strength, and I have put something in my pocket for next time. I am no longer unconfident in my small body like I used to be, and still, mistaken as a student. I know what I say, and I say what I know. I put thoughts into words and any activities I ran. I did not organize something just for the sake of running it, it needs an intention. Fun, and reflect upon the experience.

It was fantastic to be around 4 groups over 2 weeks, different vibe, and I tried not to manipulate their thoughts, but being a coach who asked guiding questions. My role is to challenge them to step out of their assumptions and have a clear plan with outcomes, roles, goals, and effective teamwork. Lastly, I manage my time and energy satisfactority to live in this line of work with minimum 10 working hours per day. I adapt myself from being a sloth after Covid infection into a hybrid sloth and bird to process everything at peace.

I am truly grateful to be here with these amazing human beings!

This is something I see clearer about myself:

It is my first time to spend time physically with this many students at this grade level. I want to have more discussion with them, have stronger relationships with them, and be with them regularly. I don't like saying goodbyes after things are done. All materials were sent back to the school, I want to keep all of them. I like looking at what students wrote to see their learning, ideas and personality.

Final expression

So, I am proud that I always had an amazing sleep every night. I had time to call my beloved ones, reviewing myself and preparing for the next day. I improved from the first Experience Program, and was able to break myself from thinking of work at all times. And I am lucky to have a team of well-blended personality: discipline, humor, honesty, flexibility and empathy (more). I am grateful for this destiny to come to American International School of Dhaka, Bangladesh. I am grateful for my program director, manager, teammates and JUMP! I am also grateful for my teachers and friends at GSSE for your understanding on my class absence. Thank you my family and Tao for keeping my energy full everyday. Thank you

my close friends who keep an eye on my life adventures. Without these people, I wouldn’t have made this far. See you everyone!

#globalcitizen #facilitation #Bangladesh #JUMP! #learning #reflection #appreciation