Maria Cristina Foundation (MCF)

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The Maria Cristina Foundation (MCF) is a non-profit organisation founded by Maria Conceicao in 2005. MCF started when Maria Conceicao, a former flight attendant, stopped in Dhaka for 24 hours. She visited the Gawair slum near the airport. What she saw changed her and her life forever .Since that day Maria has tirelessly been fundraising and creating awareness of the conditions, problems and needs of slum-dwellers in Dhaka. The foundation has been effectively breaking the chains of inter-generation cycles of poverty through education in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

We believe education opens endless opportunities We invite the children and adults to a whole new level of dreams being turned into reality one step at a time. We aim to provide them with the best education there is, so as to groom them to face the competitive world and truly help them achieve their dreams.

What we do?
• Provide quality education for slum-dwelling children
• Adult education programs
• Support vulnerable families with toiletries, food, rent and transport
• Help single mothers and widows
• Secure ethical employment opportunities for adults
• Community outreach on hygiene, education, roles of girls and women
• Community English and Bengali classes

Programs:
• School & College Program: Our children attend the Cambrian School and College. This school has been selected for their high quality standards and their dedication to develop each student at an individual level depending on their needs. MCF currently has 124 students registered in this schools and we are constantly seeking funding to cover the costs.
• School Meals and Transport Program: We do our best to provide school meals and transport to our students. These costs are not included in the school fees, so we do additional fundraising to cover these costs.
• Adult Education Program: We don’t currently have a formal adults education programme. However, the parents of the children are able to occasionally take part in English courses taught by volunteers and our older students. The objective here is to educate the adults from the same families whose children we are educating. This becomes part of our employment program, where we help employable adults find ethical job opportunities.

Maria Conceicao is the Founder of the Maria Cristina Foundation (MCF).

For other net participants we can offer an expert guidance through trained staff, give an expert opinion, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of our work.