The Maria Christina Foundation Scholarship Program

I feel very blessed to to have befriended Maria Conceicao (Emirates Women of the year 2009) and get involved in her scholarship program.

Maria is best known for setting up the Dhaka Project and has recently started the Maria Christina Foundation, which focuses on a variety of projects including the scholarship project for children from slum areas.

This program has placed 6 Bangladeshi children in Dubai schools over the past 5 months. You may have read about this in The National. Sheikh Nahyan has sponsored the 6 children's visas so that they can live and study in the UAE and Maria now has the great task ahead of her to get their school fees sponsored for the next 4 - 6 years.

I have met all the the kids recently and they say the best thing about being in Dubai is being able to go to school. That's very rare for a kid to say! They come from an area where child labour is the norm, so it's a great treat for them to live with their host families in Dubai and just pour their hearts into their schoolwork.

The children are raising funds for their education and will be running 3km for the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon and Maria will also be walking 42km for the marathon on Friday 21 January 2011.

Sponsor Milon, Himel, Sujon, Taslin, Bilkis, Shewly (and Maria!) by contributing anything you feel you would like to give to the bank details below so that they can continue their education in Dubai!

Banking Details

Maria Conceicao
Account No : 2196368162
Swift Code BOMLAEAD
Bank : Mashreq
Bank PO BOX 36612
BLDG - AL HAWAI TOWER, SHK ZAYED ROAD, AL Q003, DUBAI

Thanks for the support and if you want to meet the kids or talk to Maria about how you can help - you can contact her via e-mail mariadaconceicao@hotmail.co.uk