Korvi Rakshand—RMF PHOTO
With his privileged background and law degree from the University of London, 38-year-old Bangladeshi national Korvi Rakshand seemed destined for a high-paying career.
But an encounter almost two decades ago with several children collecting scraps at a dump set him down on another path. After spending some time playing with the group, Rakshand said he was about to leave when a young girl asked if she could come with him and be his daughter.
“[It] really bugged me inside that [if] I can’t help a girl who’s 7 to 8 years old, then what’s the point of this education, my family background and the people I know?” he recalled in an interview on Sept. 4.
Rakshand, who was then in his 20s, then conceived of a project with six friends to teach English to poor kids. Their first class was attended by 17 children “full of dreams” inside a rented room in Dhaka furnished only with a carpet, a whiteboard and a marker.
Digital learning pioneer
His initiative later led to the establishment of Jaago Foundation, a nonprofit organization created in 2007 to address the problems of access to quality education among underprivileged children. Jaago is a Bangla word which means “wake up.”
From that initial single classroom and 17 students, the foundation now caters to 206 classrooms in Bangladesh and has benefited around 30,000 students.
“For his determined spirit and quiet courage in turning away from a secure life to a more demanding one of working for the underprivileged,” Rakshand has been selected as this year’s awardee of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award (RMA) for Emergent Leadership.
RMA, considered the Nobel Prize of Asia, was established in 1958 to recognize the leadership of individuals or organizations who manifest the same selfless service shown by the late Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay after whom the award is named.
Rakshand is the 13th Bangladeshi to receive the award and the first in his country to win in the emerging leadership category, which is given to individuals age 40 and below.
Way before digital learning became the norm in schools, Jaago Foundation introduced the use of technology in teaching and learning, particularly to connect students in remote areas to teachers based in Dhaka.
AWAKE AND WOKE Korvi Rakshand established Jaago Foundation in 2007 to address problems of access and quality education for underprivileged children in Bangladesh. Jaago means “wake up” in Bangla. —PHOTO COURTESY OF RAMON MAGSAYSAY FOUNDATION
Super-exciting classes
Zoom and Google Meet were not yet popular back then, according to Rakshand, so they decided to install Skype in classrooms. “Everyone was laughing at us. It is not the traditional way of teaching. Skype [was used as a tool] for friends and families to meet up, but we thought that’s our only way,” he recalled.
In a typical classroom run by the foundation, a television is installed to cater to a maximum of 40 students while the teacher, who is in Dhaka, discusses the main lessons.
At the same time, there is a facilitator inside the classroom whose task is to help the students and maintain order. “The beauty of this model [is that] the teacher in the classroom who is not an expert is seeing how the expert teacher is [teaching] so it’s a teacher training inside the whole system,” he said.
According to Rakshand, learning became “super exciting” for the students because the lessons were delivered through television—a setup that made them feel like “a celebrity is talking to them.”
Technology also helps in the learning process, he said, because the teacher can easily show the children actual videos or pictures of the things being discussed.
“When we go to YouTube, we share a screen and show them a volcano, or maybe when we’re talking about the Philippines, we’ll show them the streets of the Philippines. The concept of every topic is much clearer to the students,” he explained, comparing it to the time when students relied only on books for illustrations.
When the foundation started, Rakshand recalled asking the children what they wanted to be as adults and “the highest dream was a yellow cab [driver] because that was their horizon, [the] highest level of knowledge that they could imagine.”
But their dreams have since started to change as they become more exposed to different ideas and knowledge, with some now aspiring to become pilots and engineers.
Two students under their supervision eventually completed their education and decided to join Jaago Foundation to become teachers for other underprivileged children.
In creating paths for poor kids to become successful, Rakshand said that he first learned about empathy from his father, a politician who helped other people, and his mother, a school principal.
“My education, my teachers—they have taught me and I want to do the same for the children of Bangladesh,” he added.
Volunteer program
The success of Rakshand’s foundation has expanded into other activities and engagements, including the youth program called Volunteer for Bangladesh.
Established in 2011, the movement is intended to encourage young people to create positive social change through capacity building, youth-led community participatory campaigns and mobilization for humanitarian assistance to build a skilled country. The program now has 50,000 registered volunteers.
Asked how he was able to encourage digital natives to “go out of their keyboards” and participate in volunteer work, Rakshand said that rather than teaching them, “we want to include them.”
“We did not ask them to get away from their keyboard, rather, we taught them how to use the keyboard more effectively,” he stressed.
While many were saying that social media was bad for society, Rakshand pointed out that the same platform has helped them reach the younger generation and even raise funds for their initiatives.
“When we’re on the streets to create awareness about children’s rights, Children’s Day, it was all over social media because there were 500 people sharing at the same time,” he said.
But the program also cautions volunteers that “virtual work is good for advocacy [but] we also need to go on the ground.”
“A young person is not experienced; they are supposed to be energetic, They will come up with wild ideas, some will work and some won’t work,” Rakshand said.
“It’s important for every country to create a space where young people could come with their ideas and definitely, experienced people will be there to guide them,” he added.