INEE Member Voices: Dipa Das, Bangladesh (ENG)

This story was collected as part of INEE's 20th Anniversary commemoration to highlight how education in the midst of crisis and upheaval has made a difference for our members and those they work with (learners, youth, teachers, caregivers, etc.). For more stories, click here.

Dipa Das, Bangladesh ENG (2:43) on the value of INEE, for the INEE 20th Anniversary, November 2020.

Hello, my name is Dipa Das, and I work as the Education Coordinator with DCA in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Our programs focus on providing literacy, numeracy, and life skills lessons to youth and adolescent women and girls in a non-formal setting in the Rohingya refugee camps. For Rohingya women and girls, the barriers to education seem almost endless, and the education resources available to them are few and far between. 

That is why INEE membership is so important because it is a platform to share experiences, resources, challenges, and ways forward to ensure education reaches the most vulnerable. 

For me, being able to access INEE resources that enabled DCA to develop a curriculum specifically for female Rohingya youth and adolescents was possible because of the network and its broad resources. 

Additionally, with the spread of COVID and the lockdown in Bangladesh, teachers were not allowed to access camp or gather in person. So, we had to adapt our teacher professional development opportunities to a remote modality.  We used so many resources from INEE to develop a Remote TiCC Training package which we delivered on WhatsApp and Zoom and has been shared among all the partners here in Bangladesh as well as other education partners around the world. 

Most importantly, in one of the modules about frameworks for Education in Emergencies, we asked teachers to share their experiences about how they have contextualized the Minimum Standards in their work. The responses really highlighted for me how INEE has become a guide in every aspect of our work. It ensures we are providing quality education opportunities and resources and support if there are gaps. 

Ultimately, INEE membership enables me to better understand and support teachers, learners, caregivers, and colleagues who are working in the Rohingya response, throughout Bangladesh, and around the world.
 

The views expressed in this blog are the author's own.