History

History

In 2005 the Pastor of Golgotha Baptist Church, Reverend Maria Das, approached Ross and Cindy Meyer with the idea of starting an English Medium School. Cindy was finishing schooling their own children and was ready for a new challenge.

After prayerful consideration, a partnership was formed between the Golgotha Baptist Church, Tranzsend (a New Zealand NGO) and BBCF, with the goal of opening a school.

In August 2006 GEMS opened its doors with a roll of 13 children. Khushi Mitra and Mira Dores were the first teachers. Each day the teachers cleaned and set up the mats and board and put out the chairs and tables. There wasn’t much equipment, there wasn’t even a classroom! Mrs Joy Prior came from NZ for six weeks to help and the guardians were very happy to join in the work together. Prakash Sir joined us as well. After a couple of months the roll had increased to 23 students and by January we had 61. We had to split into 3 classes and get another teacher, Jesu Das then MomotaBaroi, and even a cleaner, Kaniama. Jesu Sir is probably one of the teachers who has taught the most levels of any teacher, he even taught KG!

Building and Growing

We needed classrooms so with lots of work and help from Rev Maria Das and Mr Ross Meyer, the first classrooms were built. In fact the two men did so much work, that they saved enough money to make eight classrooms and two floors instead of only four. Our students learnt to climb over bricks and wires and to put up with lots of banging and building noise. It was also a very noisy, dirty time for the family living downstairs, and we are so grateful to the Das family for being so patient. We are grateful to Golgotha Baptist for the space and help to start.

In 2008 we were able to add another floor for our lovely library. Many New Zealanders gave money and books for our buildings and library.

Teachers

We were very lucky to have Miss Annikka Croft from Australia join us, and she gave us 4 wonderful years of service. We added Rashida Madam, Sunita Madam, John Sir, Liana Sir, and Flora Madam. We needed a guard and added Prasanto Sir, then Teresa Madam and Lal Thang Sir. We added lots of lovely teachers, Liza, Navy. Tithi, Tania and Caro and Carley Madam. Then Shiuly, Jyoti, Glory and Kumari Madam, Peter Sir, Minoty Madam, Joseph Sir, and Nicely Madam. Don’t forget Rebecca, Mary and Jaswanth – a school can’t run without support staff. What a shock it was to lose our teacher Mr Joseph Sir in a tragic accident in 2016. Over the years we have had so many lovely volunteers and helpers, including Robert Gilmour, Ross Meyer, Kenny Roderigues, and Caleb Meyer- none of them paid by GEMS, they just gave their time and help.

GEMS started small but had a big vision. GEMS wants to provide excellent education, not just memorising and tutor-fed schooling. GEMS wants to build excellent citizens for Bangladesh, who can think and solve problems. GEMS wants to train and model good teaching and learning. Slowly we have added to our students, and now every year requests for enrollements far exceed available space.

GEMS school is a special school, a school where students learn English and Bengali and prepare not just for O-Levels, but for life. A landmark for GEMS was our registration from January this year. Another landmark was 2012 when we started our high school, and in 2015 our O-Levels class started.

The Future

Room is always at a premium in Dhaka, and we are looking towards building more classrooms for our high school. We need a science laboratory and more space for our teachers. We want to see our first O-Level graduates pass. We want to see GEMS get better and better.

In only 2 years our school will be right up to O-Levels and have our first graduates. Where will our graduates go? We hope that GEMS graduates will become leaders and model citizens of Bangladesh. We hope our graduates will be people who solve problems and make this world a better place. At our 20 years celebration we will thank God even more for all that He has done in all of our lives.