Our aim is to empower poor people by providing them with the basic resources needed to climb out of poverty. We believe that by implementing improved sanitation, housing, healthcare and education, the world’s most vulnerable people can finally lift themselves out of poverty. Indeed, our name, ‘Arohon’, is the Bengali word for ‘climb’.

Primarily we shall be working to combat poverty in Bangladesh, where, after visiting the area where our dad grew up, we found many people struggling to access basic necessities, including safe drinking water. Bangladesh is fighting to become a middle income country, but with such a fast growing population and limited resources, millions of Bangladeshis remain trapped in poverty. With the help of Arohon, we want to open up opportunities for these people to build better lives for themselves.

Of course, as a new charitable organisation, we aim to tackle these issues one step at a time, with our first target areas being education and women’s empowerment.  Though Bangladesh has achieved gender parity in primary school enrolment, far fewer girls complete their education in comparison to their male counterparts. Of the 67 million adults that are illiterate in Bangladesh, 42 million are women (Source: DFID) – our aim is to break down the barriers to girls’ education. Our vision is to shift gender perceptions in Bangladesh so women are openly offered the same education and career opportunities as men. Arohon will be opening a women’s education centre teaching basic numeracy and literacy skills; we believe this is one of the first steps to help local women realise their full potential.

As a result of poverty around three million children (half of which are girls), miss out on state primary education (Source: UNGEI).  Arohon will also be supporting the extension of a currently struggling public library, so that local citizens have free educational resources available to them.

Of course to make all this happen, we need your help! We hope you agree that this is a worthwhile cause – to sponsor our Kilimanjaro climb and consequently raise money to build a brand new education and community centre for women and girls in Bangladesh, please click here!