Movie week of Aparajita

Movie week of Aparajita Literacy program was from 22^nd May, 2016 to 26^th May, 2016. In that week, the instructor showed some movies like “Frozen”, “Tangle” and “Brave” to the students of different classes. Each class got to watch one movie. All the students enjoyed the movies very much. Although they did not properly understand the dialogue of the movie, they tried their best to understand the context. While watching movies, the instructors were present there and they were helping the student to understand the movie set. They also translate the dialogue to the students. Additionally, the instructors also help them to understand movie character and context.

Usually the people who are studying in Aparajita program as student watch movie acted by human being. Animated movie characters were quite new for them because they never try to watch those. The students of Aparajita said that their kids or younger sibling watch this type of cartoon but they never tried. They thought animated movies are not interesting and very childish but when they had movie week with animated movies they start loving them. Also most of them never watched movie in big banner with projector. For the first time, they could enjoy movie similarly as movie hall.

After watching each movie, the students were so excited about the story and the cute characters. Some of them expressed that it was like a trip in the dream world. They were also demanding to show more movies similar to this. Some of them were requesting to give some movie to them with memory card so that they can watch later.

The next week, from 29^th May, 2016 to 2nf June, 2016 were discussion classes. In that week the instructors discussed about the movies showed in the movie week. They asked to the students of each class about the summary of the movie they watched. Then together they discussed the learning of each movie. They also discussed the similarity of real life with the movie. They found out the mistakes from the movie and discussed how they can avoid those mistakes in their real life.

For example, the student and instructors while discussing “Brave”, they identified that the relationship with the princess and queen was not ok. They had communication gap and none of them tried to understand other. The queen tried to impose her decision on her daughter. On the other hand, the princess was determined about her decision. This situation led to the main problem of the movie. The instructors discussed that the problem in the movie began due to a bad relationship of mother and daughter. In the read life, if they want to avoid some problem like this they have to have good relationship with their children and younger siblings. Then the instructors discussed how they can establish a very friendly relationship with their children and younger siblings by spending time,  playing, listining their story, telling story, sharing some expriences with them.

Annual Prize Giving Ceremony of Aparajita Literacy Program, AUW, 2016

The annual prize giving ceremony of the Aparajita Literacy Program has successfully taken place today, 28th April 2016, recognizing, celebrating and rewarding the achievements of the students. 

The Aparajita team was much appreciated and honored to have professor John Schroeder, the acting Vice Chancellor, Mr. Omar Sharif, Ms. Tasneem Abedin and Mr. Sarmad Hasan, the honorable members of the Governance Committee (AUWGC), Ms. Masuma and her team from the Housekeeping Department, professor Sharmistha Ghosh, the adviser of the Aparajita, the most beloved students of Aparajita and the students of AUW at the program. 

All of the Aparajita instructors naming Sadia Islam, Nur-E-Jannat Amee, Moushumi Mili, Bibi Joynab, Raisa Ashraf, Nusrat Chowdhury, Nurjahan Hira, Karishma Tarannum, Diana Maliat arranged and directed the program with a great assistance of professor Sharmistha and Ms. Masuma. Three ex-instructors of Aparajita named Taslima Khatun, Marina Afrin and Sharmin Shitol were present in today's ceremony. 

A short video was shown to the audience as an introduction of the Aparajita Literacy Program.
 
The Aparajita Team was extremely appreciated and inspired by the words of professor John Schroeder. The speech by a student named Prova Gupta has inspired the team even more. 

Professor John Schroeder and the AUWGC members participated in handing over the prizes to the students who attended the classes regularly and performed well. Nargis Akter, Fatema Akter, Tamanna Islam, Prova Gupta, Lucky Akter, Lipi begum, Nasima Akter were the out-standers enough to win the prizes this year. 

The event ended with a bunch of performances by the students of Aparajita. This was their very first time in the Aparajita's history that the students performed formally on stage in front of the faculty and the students. This made the students even more confident and happy. 

To conclude, the program was a huge success and the joy of the successful program grew more when Mr. Omar, one of the board members of the AUWGC announced that our students will be given 13 month's salary in 12 months, which means they will be given a bonus of one full month and they will be given their salary within the 5th of every month. All of our beloved students were bursting with joy delight after hearing this from Mr. Omar. 

The organizers of the program are highly grateful to the AUWGC, the Housekeeping Department, Food Department, the Advisor Professor Sharmistha, the students of Aparajita and the Aparajita instructors for their uncompromising effort in the final week of the semester. The team is specifically thankful to  Sharmin Shitol, the ex-instructor of the Aparajita for her pure dedication for the success of the program. 

Final Preparation for the annual event of Aparajita

Tomorrow is 28^th April, the annual event of Aparajita Literacy Program. The whole team and the student body are very much excited and are eagerly waiting for the sun to rise and welcome the day, the 28^th. The team Aparajita is done with all the arrangement. Nicely designed invitation cards with wishing inside and tulip, butterfly, rose, ribbon outside are ready to appreciate the students.

38 badges with golden logo of Aparajita on black background has just reached two hours back. The badges are way nicer than the expectation. The Instructor group is eager to have one badge. The fact that the badges are not allocated for the instructors made them quite upset L.

The video to be shown is almost ready. The team is editing it to be more perfect and consistent. Though it took a lot of hard work and much more attention than other tasks, it is going to be mind blowing.

The most exciting attraction is the gifts for the outstanding students from the Aparajita classes. The team bought seven gifts for the student who showed their motivation, interest and excellent performance in the classes. The four students are going to get 4 bowl set and other three are going to get 3 coffee mugs. The team is giving these household crockeries because the students are not like the main stream traditional students. Household crockeries will attract them more than a story book, dairy or pen. However, the gifts are already rapped by the glossy wrapping paper and ready for tomorrow to be handed over.

A big size chocolate cake is ordered for celebrating the annual event. Crunchy Singaras and soft drinks will also be added to the snacks. Tomorrow, the cake and the other snacks will reach AUW half an hour earlier than the event starting time. Dining staff will be in the event to help the instructors to serve the food to the honorable guests and the adorable students.

The introduction and the script for facilitating the event is ready for English version. Some instructors are still working on Bengali translation of every word for the convenience of the Aparajita students.

The entire invited guests have given a gentle reminder again for attending the event. The sound system, presentation slides and the stage are ready for the inauguration, preps for performance are there. The team is having last minutes preparation now and hoping for a successful event tomorrow.

Preparation for the Annual Event of Aparajita

The most awaited annual program is going to take place for Aparajita Literacy program in 28^th April, 2016. Preparation has started from the beginning of this month. Among the Aparajita team members, all the tasks were discussed already and also divided among the 10 group members. For some of the works, there are deadline given also. The tasks include different steps of video making, badge making, invitation card making, ordering food, preparing for performances, and completing other academic formalities. The preparation has started with setting date with the conformation of attendance of the GC board members in the event. The house keeping department also assured that they will allow maximum numbers of cleaners to attend the program and will also provide all types of assistance.

The group has planned to make an introductory video about Aparajita Literacy Program to introduce this program to the audience of the event. For video making, one group is formed.  They have generated ideas of the sequence for the video. They have borrowed cameras for several times but due to busy schedule of the advisor, they were lagging behind their work. But finally they managed to have an appointment with the advisor and captured her thoughts and plans for Aparajita. Two of the instructors also shared their ideas about Aparajita in the video. Now, the captures and the shootings are complete and the group is looking forward to have a final piece of video after editing.

The team for badge making has already visited some shops to order badge for the Aparajita student. They have observed different prices and different qualities of the badge. The design is fixed by now. Tomorrow, this team is going to order 38 badges for the students, which will have Aparajita logo on it.  

All the members of Aparajita are working delightedly for making super cute invitation cards for the students. This task seems very interesting to all. After collecting all the materials like paper, sign pen, ribbon, glue, thread etc. from OSA, the team has started their work. They are using their level best creativity to design the cards much attractive to the students. Sometimes some designs are unintentionally destroyed but other members are making that fault meaningful by adding their creative thoughts.

The practices for performance are also going well with the assistance of some of the Aparajita instructors. The students of Aparajita is going to perform one chorus, one solo song, one play, and going to deliver one speech. The chorus is a fusion of five Bengali songs. Some students are having hard time to memories the lyrics of the songs but still they are very interested to learn them in order to perform on the stage. The student who is performing solo song is so talented. She is performing “Khachar vetor ochin pakhi kamne ashe jay” a very hard and melodious Lalon song. The instructors were having confusion about her ability when she expressed her interest for singing this song. But after they heard the song in her voice, they became more than impressed with her talent and courage. Three students for acting the play was set in the last week but one backed out. Then the instructors convinced the other students to volunteer. In the play, there is a role for a rickshaw puller. None of the students were agreeing to do that character. So, the instructors had to convey the main massage of the play to the students and they also explained the importance of the character of the rickshaw puller. Then one student willingly agreed to do the character and she is now happy with her role as it is very interesting and important role in the play. This play team still needs a lot of practice to perform on the stage. They also need to memorize their dialogues soon. 

Some additional works like booking the rooftop for the final event, inviting the whole student body, faculty and staff, ordering foods, requesting for plates and spoons from the housekeeping are almost done. The instructors are having very hectic time to perform all these jobs as they are also undergraduate students. However, the preparation for annual the event for Aparajita Literacy Program is going on a full speed. All the students of Aparajita are very excited for the day and the other members of Aparajita are also eagerly looking forward for a successful annual program. 

A Sad Story from a Aparajita Instructor

This semester, I am being unable to come to teach the Aparajita classes due to my extensive study pressure. I am having four courses from which three courses have labs. Therefore, a lot of time is being consumed by my own classes regularly. As a result, I had to do this painful tradeoff of quitting the Aparajita classes for the time being.
Being an Aparajita Instructor since September 2011, I have been greatly enjoying the role of teaching the amazing student we have. I personally think that the classes are the most attractive part of working at the Aparajita Literacy Program. Now that I can't come to the classes, I am badly missing my students and the energetic class I used to see twice every week. When the other fellow teachers keep telling me that the students asked about me, my heart melts with sadness for not being able to see and interact with the beloved students of mine.
I've got a realization that teaching is not only about having a teacher-student and a knowledge delivering-receiving relationship, teaching has a huge amount of emotional attachment embedded with the whole process.
The students are supporting me in a great deal to overcome the sorrow I have due to missing the classes. The students ask me my updates wherever they see me. Some would pop out suddenly and hug me when I am waiting in front of the lift or I am rushing for my classes. Many students of AUW have told me that they feel really jealous seeing the housekeeping personnel apus having a friendly relation with us.
I would conclude this writing with a wish to end this semester quickly and joining back to the class from the next semester. 

Achievement: An hour for Aparajita students free of work!

Aparajita Team has formulated a report this month. The report is based on the entire achievements and challenges that the program had throughout the journey. Although there were a bunch of success stories, one of the major challenges last year was the massive absence in class. With the IRB approval, an in-depth interview was taken from the students for knowing the reasons behind this huge absence. 

Interviewing the students was very useful for the program. Because it opened a gateway to get closer to the students  by knowing their personal stories. This led to creating a very close relationship between the teachers and students. The most important achievement of the interview was to be able to know the additional expectations of the students from the program. 

Family responsibilities, extra workload, for example, overtime duty etc were the reasons why the students stopped coming to class. 

After the interview, the team was in a hard time finding ways how to make the students come back to the class. The team started thinking about what can be done but found almost no ways to resolve their family and work problems. Eventually, the group came up with an idea of applying to the AUW Governance Committee for freeing an hour for the students when they will not work but will come to Aparajita classes.

The main motive of writing the report was to present the program to the AUW Governance Committee. By the end of the report, a series of recommendations were added where the team included their appeal to free an hour for their students. 

As the next step, the Aparajita team scheduled a meeting with the acting Vice Chancellor John Schroeder with the presence of the advisor of the program. In the meeting, the Aparajita team briefed about the program to the Vice Chancellor and at last demanded for an hour free of work for their students. 

At last, the hard work of the Aparajita team was paid off. An email of approval of freeing an hour for the students was received from the AUW Governance Committee on November 1st. 

Logo of the Aparajita Literacy Program

Today was a special day among all the other special days as the Aparajita team has designed a logo for the program.

The path of designing a logo by the team was not very easy going. Two of the team members, Nur-e-Jannat and Bibi Joynab designed some samples of the logo earlier in hardcopy by pencil and paper. In the general meeting with all the team members and the advisor, the samples were shown for selecting a final logo. With some recommendation and correcting some designs, a logo was selected for making a colorful soft copy. Then, a problem arose that no one in the team knows how to design a logo in soft copy.

Roughly designed logo

There were many ideas to get the soft copy of the logo done such as going to a shop, seeking help from any students and faculty etc. But nothing worked. Suddenly, an idea popped into everyone’s head to seek help from an IT expert staff Mr. Luke, but that was the very moment when Mr. Luke was ready to leave the university and there were very few busy days left for him to help the Aparajita team. Still the team did not stop to approach to Mr. Luke for seeking help to make the logo. He was very enthusiastic and eager to help but was confused when he can give the team some time. However, the time did not work because of busy schedule of Mr. Luke, final exams of the team members and break after finals.

When the team members came back after the break, Mr. Luke was already gone. So, there remained a very little hope for making a soft copy of the logo. The team started looking for alternative helping hands. For the time being the thought of making the logo got stuck.

It is almost end of the academic year. The anniversary of the annual showcase is coming ahead, still logo is not designed. The team decided that this time the logo should be done in anyways. So, the team members determined to start. At first, they looked for online resources, but nothing worked as the design of the hardcopy is unique, which does not match with online templates. So, they decided to do it by Microsoft paint. Nur-e-Jannat, with some other team members started to work. After drawing so many lines she became successful to make the perfect shape of the soft copy of the logo. Then started color contrasting. Black, ash, light blue, dark green, white, yellow, orange, light pink, and what they did not try, but the final logo appeared perfect with a white page, black letters, yellow sun, and black background along with an AUW logo aside. After two and half hours of work, Nur-e-Jannat along with other team members successfully completed designing the soft copy of the logo.

Finally done soft copy of the logo

All the team members are happy and excited with the logo. Now, is time to show the logo to the faculty advisors. It will be a supersize for the advisor Sharmistha Ghosh and Christian Gigard and also for two missing team member Mousumi mili and Nurzahan Hira. Now, the team is waiting to the see the comments from faculty advisors regarding the logo.

Sadia Islam