WBA’s Community Language and Mother Tongue Education Programme runs a Bengali language Mother Tongue and Cultural Education Classes supporting young people were academically underachieving in their mainstream studies build their literacy and numeracy skills and raises their educational achievements.  We are keen to support young people to learn more about history, culture and heritage so that young people develop their self-esteem and confidence in their own ethnicity and identity. This project is well supported by local parents who feel that it was important that their children remained close to their roots while embracing British culture at the same time.

 

Successful outcomes to date:

• Young people demonstrating improvements in their reading, writing, speaking skills in Bengali.

• Raised awareness of Bangladeshi young people’s culture, heritage and history.

• Top grades achieved by young people in their recent Bengali language GCSE exams.

• Improved communication skills helped strengthen relationships in the family environment -

• helping to bridge the communication gap in Bengali between young people and their parents and other family members.

• Young people feel very proud of their ethnicity, culture and heritage.