Day Boarders' Day

 

Actually it was supposed to be "Day Boarders' Night, " but because of the electricity problem (14 hours of cuts every day) we had to celebrate in the daytime, just after lunch until 2:30 so it was called "Day Boarders Day".

Our Hostel teacher Wangdue organized the proramme to promote and encourage the Day Boarder students. Actually the main reason for organizing this programme was to promote and encourage Day Boarder students forward. Most of the Day Boarders kids participated in the programme. Kids thought it was a very wonderful day and it was successful to win the heart of the audience.

By Senior Tsering Dhondup D367

 

Background about "Day Boarders"

SMD is vastly overcrowded. We’ve had to rent four flats outside the school compound to accommodate the crush. Still, there are hundreds of children on our Waiting List; unless we take them, they will never have a chance to get an education.

We’ve hit upon a solution of sorts. We take children as “day boarders”. They come to us 7 days a week, all year round, from 7 AM until 7 PM so we can feed them all four meals the boarders get. We clothe them, (uniforms and play clothes) bathe them and provide full care, including medical and dental in the hours they are with us. In essence, they are boarders, but they sleep somewhere else.

We have about 80 ‘day boarders’ in the school this year. We cover all these expenses and the cost of adult caregivers out of sponsorship. It costs the same to sponsor a ‘day boarder’ as it does to sponsor a day student. This has become economically untenable for SMD, but it is the only way these children can access enough food and an education. From the start of 2011, we have begun to double-sponsor day boarders.