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TAPE A L'ŒIL co-builds Chakar School: the school bus that comes to meet children in Dacca's slums

7. Community involvement

Context

Founded in 1996, Tape à l'œil is a French brand of ready-to-wear clothing and accessories for children. Aware of current social issues, Tape à l'œil has an active and committed CSR approach towards "consuming better, producing better, managing better".

Through its Foundation, the Tape à l'œil teams are committed to helping children in distress. In the area, they carry out concrete actions that cover three major priorities: meeting basic needs, developing their confidence (with fun activities) and revealing their talent (access to education).

Aware of its responsibility towards the populations in its production countries, the Foundation is particularly active in Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh, education is a real issue. Not all children can move to reach schools that are sometimes very far away. On the spot, the association It's Humanity Foundation contributes to the empowerment of local populations, to the development of skills and to education. For the past two years, the Foundation Tape à l'oeil has been working in partnership with the association to create and build a school bus, the "Chakar School", to bring school to the children.

Objectives

  • Ensure access to basic education where it is most needed

  • Contribute to the development of the most vulnerable children

  • To develop their skills and offer them prospects for the future, to escape the cycle of poverty

  • To support Bangladeshi community development projects

APPROACH

The aim of the Chakar School is to bring schooling to isolated children in the outskirts of Dacca, right in the centre of their slums. The school bus travels the streets of certain neighbourhoods, with teachers on board who organise classes on the spot. It is equipped as a classroom and allows isolated children to benefit from primary education. It regularly accommodates groups of 10 pupils, who learn the alphabet, hygiene awareness and extracurricular activities.

This school bus is particularly well adapted to the problems of the area: children from these neighbourhoods sometimes have to work, sometimes have to stay at home to look after their brothers and sisters... The bus then comes to their place of living, and they can go there for half days and then go home to help their families; this agile solution facilitates their access to school.

Shortly after the school bus was introduced, Covid-19 emerged, hindering the development of the programme. Once the health situation improves, more pupils should be able to attend.

From the modelling of the bus to its launch, the project was co-constructed by the two foundations. The teams from Tape à l'œil went to the site several times to understand the association and its project and to be as close as possible to the communities. In addition to TAO's essential financial support, they worked together to design the bus, its equipment, its layout and its exterior design to make it practical and attractive. From the chassis to the paintwork, the entire project was monitored by Fabrice Bouley, a TAO employee in Bangladesh.

Initially built in "lab" mode, the Chakar School, if it works and attracts enough children, should be able to be duplicated with other buses in other sensitive slums in Dacca.

CONTRIBUTION TO COMPANY PERFORMANCE

  • Financial support of €30,000

  • Team building around projects that benefit the community

  • Contribution of volunteer employees to these philanthropic actions

Benefits

  • 270 children benefited

  • Privileged access to education for children caught in a spiral of poverty and isolation

  • Contribution to the development of Bangladeshi communities

  • Raising employee awareness of the Foundation's activities
Workforce
746 (2018)
Turnover
172 M€ (2019)
Country
Bangladesh

Tape à l oeil

24 Avenue du Grand Cottignies
59290 Wasquehal

www.t-a-o.com/

Contact

Gaëlle DERBESSE

Care leader

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Mise à jour le 01/10/2021

Creative Commons Attribution This work by Réseau Alliances – World Forum Lille is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.