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(PRWEB) April 29, 2004 -- The Charfassion Orphanage, located on an island bordering
the Bay of Bengal in southern Bangladesh, provides shelter, food, and means for
an education in a communal family environment of one hundred boys and over a
dozen dedicated staff members. Built in the early 1970s, the current facility,
whose rectilinear design does not suit the climate nor the cultural traditions
of the region, has been ravaged by the tropical-humid climate, destructive monsoons
and floods. As one of the more rare "permanent" concrete structures
on the island, the orphanage also serves as an emergency shelter during frequent
natural catastrophes for the 2,000 impoverished villagers who live nearby in
more "temporary" bamboo hut structures.
Team Takka is a group of Dartmouth students dedicated to the fundraising and
promotion of this particular project on campus. The group is primarily responsible
for publicizing the Charfassion endeavor and contacting potential donor foundations
in hopes that they will contribute to funding the design/construction of the
new facility. Led by co-chairs Matt Sueoka and Kabir Sehgal, the group is aiming
to raise over $250,000.
The orphanage currently receives funding from the Bangladeshi government, through
income from land ownership and through donations from child rights organizations,
such as Human Rights- First the Child. Creating the design for a new facility
as an Engineering Honors Thesis at Dartmouth has reduced the overall cost of
construction.
Collaboration with professional engineers and architects in the United States
and in Bangladesh will facilitate the progression from the final design solution
of the thesis project to the completed construction of a new orphanage facility.
This network of advisors has ensured that the new orphanage design can be constructed
at an economically reasonable cost. However, the project cannot be completed
without the funds to finance construction. Dartmouth's Tucker Foundation will
raise funds for construction of the new facility while some additional funds
will be raised by the orphanage administration in Bangladesh.
The orphanage project has evolved into a pilot endeavor for an international
academic collaboration between Dartmouth and the Bangladesh University of Engineering
and Technology (BUET), one of the country's leading universities in Dhaka, as
future students from both schools will be able to work together on supplemental
design projects for the new facility. This unique relationship will allow Dartmouth
students to pursue individual and group projects to supplement the newly constructed
orphanage facility, providing these students with invaluable international project
exposure with a distinctive, non-western foreign culture. Dartmouth students
will gain experience in overseas collaboration while broadening their understanding
of a developing third world country. The infrastructure provided by a new facility
will lay the foundation for future Dartmouth programs, similar to the Tucker
Foundation's Cross-Cultural Program in Nicaragua, which will allow undergraduate
and graduate students to pursue short-term and long-term projects to benefit
the orphanage and greater village communities.
For more information, check out the Charfassion
Orphanage Project website
This news release orginally posted as http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/4/prweb121872.htm
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