According to the Inter Sector Coordination Group (ISCG) 60% of the total Forcefully Displaced Myanmar Nationals (FDMN), commonly known as, Rohingya population is children and adolescent and around 40% of children are outside the coverage of education & protection. Lack of knowledge on health and hygiene is common among the adolescents. Many of them are under trauma. The girls are vulnerable to trafficking. The mothers are not sufficiently aware of reproductive health. Education and protection are a priority according to UN convention and the priority of the donors. 

CODEC is trying to provide education & protection to the children & adolescent of forcefully displaced Myanmar citizen in Cox’s Bazar through different projects. In future, if the UN agencies and the government approach CODEC to facilitate the repatriation process, CODEC will draw a strategy for orderly repatriation.

SCALE-UP OF EARLY LEARNING AND NON-FORMAL BASIC EDUCATION PROGRAMME FOR THE OUT-OF-SCHOOL ROHINGYA REFUGEE CHILDREN IN LEDA, SHAMLAPUR AND OTHER SPONTANEOUSLY DEVELOPED MAKESHIFT SETTLEMENTS IN TEKNAF AND UKHIYA UPAZILAS OF COX’S BAZAR DISTRICT IN BANGLADESH (CODEC UMN PROJECT)

As a non-profitable organization, Community Development Centre (CODEC) has a prior focus on education for every child. From this concentration, we are standing beside the Forcefully Displaced Myanmar Nationals (FDMN), commonly known as, Rohingya refugee community even before the influx. After the influx, with the guidance of UNICEF as well as government of Bangladesh, we extended our hand to implement early learning and informal basic education for the FDMN children. Till now, we have covered 39,340 children by establishing 420 learning centres in 13 camps of Ukhiya and Teknaf Upazila of Cox’s Bazar district. The major activities of the project are delivering early learning and informal Basic education program for Rohingya children with 420 operational learning centers and well maintained wash facilities in Ukhiya and Teknaf Upazila of Cox’s Bazar; delivering quality early learning to 4-6 aged and basic education to 7-14 aged Rohingya children with trained up teachers from host community and Rohingya community; establishing an accountable supervision, coordination and support structure in place to keep operational the Rohingya Community education by operational LCMC committee and local supervisors trained on pedagogy, child protection, PSS, DRR, health and hygiene etc.; ensuring effective emergency preparedness and response capacity and strategies are in place by trained up staffs on EPRP/CCDRR; making the Rohingya communities aware about their responsibilities in education and protection through C4D activities. The project is continuing its valiant work in developing awareness of education by engagement of community, empowerment of Rohingya community, psychosocial support for the traumatized FDMN children, quality education for the FDMN children, increase aesthetic beauty practices among the learners and establishing collaborative relationship with different line organizations, different govt., and non-govt. stakeholders.

CODEC SCHOOL FEEDING PROGRAMMEE – (SFP) PROJECT

The School Feeding Programme (SFP) project has been undertaken by the World food Program (WFP) at the camp areas in Cox’s Bazar with the partnership of CODEC to mitigate the nutritional deficiency of Rohingya children. Although WFP School feeding Programme started in registered camps in 2002, CODEC under took the school feeding programme from January 2017. The objectives of the project are – Increasing student enrollment and attendance rate; Reducing dropout rate of the students from the school and literacy activates & Decreasing nutritional vulnerability of the children as the children as the food (biscuits) provided are fortified with micro-nutrients. The major activities of the project are collecting, storing and distributing biscuits fortified with micro-nutrients for the Rohingya Refugee Learning Centre’s children in the camp areas; and De-worming children in the camp.

EDUCATION AND PRTECTION FOR ROHINGYA CHILDREN – (EPRC) PROJECT

The project seeks to strengthen and expand equitable quality learning aligned with education sector standard, Ministry of Primary and Mass Education (MoPME) & Ministry of Education (MoE) standard by executing retention of existing children and expanding access to reach a total of 66,345 children, adolescent and youth aged 3-24 years, through 635 Community Based Early Childhood Care and Development (CBECCD) centres, 600 Community Based Learning Facilities (CBLF), 277 Learning Centre (LC), 20 Primary schools, 03 lower secondary schools and 65 adolescent and youth clubs  in Nayapara RC, Kutupalong RC, camp 1E, 1W, 2W, 2E, 3, 4, 4E, 5, 6, 7, 21, 26 and 27. The project lays emphasis on teachers and technical person’s capacity building to ensure meaningful education for the refugee children, adolescent and youth through ongoing professional development activities and subject based training. The project also provides structured psychosocial support through 5 CFS for the development of 1750 children. Now, a number of children adopted their copping mechanism by these interventions. CODEC provided life skill sessions among the 600 adolescents through the adolescent club. Now, all of them are conscious on child marriage, child rights, food & nutrition, personal hygiene & reproductive health etc. along with the awareness activities, all of the targeted adolescents have received vocational training. By maintaining standard case management procedures, CODEC has responded &ensured the services among 800 children who were at risk. Capacity development training has been provided among 700 community people and parents about child protection, child development, child rights, case identification & referral services.

Major activities of the project are – providing education through Community Based Early Childhood Care and Development (CBECCD), Community Based Learning Facilities (CBLF), Pre-Primary Education (PPE), Primary School (Grade I-V), Learning Centres, CBLF in Madrasha, Junior Secondary School (Grade VI-VIII), Adolescent Club and Adolescent Group for Literacy Boost (AdGLiB), ICT Class, Basic and Advance Course. Moreover, the project provides Psychosocial Support to the vulnerable children, Provide Case Management   support to the children who are at risk, Capacity development of the community people & project staffs & volunteers & Community engagement activity.

PROTECTIVE ENVIRONMENT CREATION FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS IN AND AROUND COX’S BAZAR AREA (CODEC MPC PROJECT)

The project “Protective Environment Creation for Children and Adolescent in and around Cox’s Bazar Area” (MPC) aims to establish Protective Environment for children through strengthening the service provision and changing harmful social norms to reduce their vulnerability towards abuse, violence, exploitation, and negligence. As a community centered organization, CODEC has been implementing the project since 2010 with the support of Ministry of Woman and Child Affairs (MoWCA), GoB and UNICEF Bangladesh at the host community and since September 2017 in Rohingya camps when the influx was instigated. The project is working on minimum package of social protection services and social change initiatives to enhance the protective environment for children and adolescents, especially girls, against violence, abuse and exploitation through Multi-purpose Centre (MPC). Life skills-based education for adolescents’ empowerment is provided to increase knowledge, awareness and active involvement in the society of adolescents, especially girls through the adolescent groups. Community members are supported to directly get involved with the activities, and for that Community Based Child Protection Committee (CBCPC) are supported at Village/Ward/Upazila level. At host community 05 Multi-purpose Centre (MPC) at Ukhiya, Teknaf and Pekua Upazila under Cox’s Bazar District are strategically situated in close proximity with government mainstream schools and in many places in the premises of government schools and 16 Multi-purpose Centre (MPC) at different Rohingya camps. MPC is ensuring that children are kept in schools, also as a venue in providing after school activities to meet the holistic/psychosocial needs (health, emotional, recreational etc.) of the children. Trained case workers are also positioned in the Multi-purpose Centre (MPC) to enable a more proactive approach to case management for children at risk. The major activities of the project are – Psychosocial Support Services, Case Management Services, Life-Skills Based sessions, Community Based Child Protection, Social cohesion/peace building activities, Computer Hub, Foundational Skills (basic literacy and numeracy) & Occupational/Vocational Skills/Employability Soft Skills package.