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Panigram English Classes Grow Exponentially

Posted by Katrina Lee on July 2nd, 2010

Over 150 children children attended the third Panigram Resort English lesson, more than double the number of the previous week again!

Over 150 children children attended the third Panigram Resort English lesson, more than double the number of the previous week again!

Our third Friday English Lesson was about geography. In preparation, as usual, we went to the market in search for supplies. We were on a hunt for either a world map or globe, preferably in English. Who knew it would be such a difficult feat just to get a map that wasn’t distorted, inaccurate, or discolored. We finally settled on a decent laminated map in Bengali. We figured we would put labels in English on top of the map.

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Categories: Community Outreach, Interns, Internships, Social Responsibility | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Comments: Be the first to comment..

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Surveying Our Villages

Posted by Timothy Chen on July 1st, 2010

The past month of work has been an eye-opening experience for me as I explore Panigram’s surrounding towns with my fellow interns.  My project for this summer is to collect baseline demographic data on these villages in order to better understand the community’s current condition—and its most pressing needs.  Since the Bangladeshi government has no demographic information (and not even any maps of the area), it’s up to us to do what in the United States would include census administration, map-making, and social outreach.  What our team is working on right now is the surveying: we visit villagers’ homes and go through a list of basic questions about household size, income, health, work, and education.  By obtaining a snapshot of the community’s current state, we hope to gauge Panigram’s impact in future years by comparing today’s data to subsequent years’.

Some of the villagers in our host community.

Some of the villagers in our host community.

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Categories: Community Outreach, Construction, Interns, Internships, News, Responsible Hospitality, Social Responsibility, Sustainable Design, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Comments: Be the first to comment..

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Health, Hygiene, and Hysteria

Posted by Katrina Lee on June 28th, 2010

Health and Hygiene was the topic of this week’s “Friday English Lessons”. In preparation for the lesson, we purchased about thirty toothbrushes, toothpaste packages, and mini soap bars.  Caio drew a Leonardo di Vinci Vitruvius man -inspired human body with different body parts labeled in English. It turned out to look more like a cartoon version of the Vitruvius man, but it worked. I took my try at drawing and labeling a face, but it turned out a bit creepy. I had the demonstrations all planned. With the gifts and teaching aids in hand, I thought we were fully prepared for the lesson.

Teaching English in Bangladesh

Katrina and Caio teach the children names of parts of the body in English.

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Categories: Community Outreach, Interns, Internships, News, Photos, Social Responsibility | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Comments: 1

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Bangladesh Army Takes Over Panigram

Posted by Kristin Boekhoff on June 23rd, 2010

I arrived at the site yesterday and was completely surrounded by Army officers. They blocked the path that we normally take during the dry season to get to our site. Annoyed, I asked to speak with the commanding officer. Read the rest of this entry »

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Connecting with the Community: Friday English Lessons

Posted by Katrina Lee on June 23rd, 2010

Children from the village came to the project site for English lessons.

Children from the village came to the project site for English lessons.

Last Friday marked the first of Panigram’s weekly English sessions for the kids of the village. The plan was to teach and review the English alphabet, numbers, and basic greetings.  As usual, we didn’t need to tell the kids to come to Panigram; at 3’oclock there was a group of twenty-four kids, aged four to twelve, hanging around the pavilion. Read the rest of this entry »

Categories: Community Outreach, Interns, Internships, Social Responsibility | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Comments: 8

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Cornell Interns Invade Bangladesh

Posted by Kristin Boekhoff on June 15th, 2010

It is summer again and I have a fabulous new crop of interns helping me with my project: two architects, two engineers, and two hotel students. I will let them introduce themselves in their own words… Read the rest of this entry »

Categories: Interns, Internships, News, Photos | Tags: , , , , , , | Comments: 5

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Panigram Resort Ground Breaking

Posted by Kristin Boekhoff on June 5th, 2010

Because we are building this resort for the future generations, we had the children break the ground for the resort.

Because we are building this resort for the future generations, we had the children break the ground for the resort.

“The Assistant District Commissioner is really angry and has just left.” My intern’s voice rang in my ears. We were almost an hour and a half late to our ground-breaking ceremony. Initially I had invited everyone at 11:00am thinking that most people would arrive around 11:30am because “Bangladesh time” seems to run thirty to sixty minutes behind “actual time”. Of course, yesterday all of our guests arrived at exactly 11:00am.

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Categories: Uncategorized | Comments: 9

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