Save the Children takes IKEA co-workers to Bangladesh

Anja Kalb works for Save the Children in Germany. This week she’s traveling with a group of IKEA coworkers to visit projects we fund in Bangladesh. Here she describes the projects they are visiting.

Together with five IKEA employees I’ll travel to Bangladesh. We’ll visit two Save the Children projects, funded by the yearly IKEA Soft Toy campaign.

The first project addresses children of indigenous groups in Chittagong Hill Tract area. Together with a local NGO Save the Children creates access to education for boys and girls. Children of indigenous minorities often face difficulties entering the governmental school system, because they don’t or do not fluently speak the national language Bengali. Hence we offer pre-primary education in indigenous languages, improve the learning environments in classrooms and train the teachers. By providing vocational training we enable older children to find decent jobs later. That’s how we give the children the chance for a brighter future!

The second project in the capital Dhaka addresses underprivileged out of school children who can’t attend school because they have to work to contribute to their families’ income. Together with local NGOs we provide basic education and vocational training. When the children grow up we support them to find legal and well paid jobs to escape from exploitation.

I am very happy to go to Bangladesh together with the IKEA co-workers and visit these exciting projects!