Dartmouth Student designs (and now funds) Orphanage

Matthew Sueokas Engineering Honors Thesis project, the new design of the Charfassion Orphanage in Southern Bangladesh, is an academic endeavor with profound international social and economic implications. Now he is embarking on a massive fundraising effort.

(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. Dartmouths 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 countrys 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 Foundations 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.

Please send contributions to the Tucker Foundation at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, 03755.