Help a child in Korail
solve the problems
no one else will.
Korail is Dhaka's largest slum. With your support, The Tech Academy helps its children learn real skills and build real solutions for their own community.
Through our Sponsor a Child programme, we match sponsors with a small group of young changemakers working on one real project. You help carry them through their year.
Below, you can see where and how we work, meet the children, and choose a project to sponsor.
A slum the size of about 36 hectares, pressed against Dhaka's richest neighbourhoods.
Korail is the largest slum in Dhaka. More than 200,000 people live on about 36 hectares of land, pressed between two of the city's wealthiest neighbourhoods.
Many came here after losing everything to floods and cyclones. Our classroom in Banani is less than a kilometre from where they sleep.
- Banani, Dhaka
between Gulshan & Banani lakes - 200,000+ residents
on ~36 hectares - Under 1 km
from our Tech Academy classroom - 8,000+ children
aged 7–16 live here
Many problems. Early responsibility. Three areas of support.
Childhood in Korail starts early. A child here may walk a younger sibling to school, carry water home, and help care for the family — long before children in wealthier places, in Dhaka or in the West, are asked to do the same. They learn responsibility young. Sometimes younger than any child should. This is hard. But it also shapes children who see the problems around them clearly and want to solve them. That is what we build on. Korail has many problems. We looked at which ones matter most, and at the skills our children can learn, and chose three themes for our projects: Safe Home, Water & Sanitation, and Access to Technology.
Safe Home.
A home should protect a child. In Korail, it often cannot. Homes are built from tin and wood and stand very close together. The wiring is unsafe and 6 in 10 homes cook with gas through illegal connections that can leak. The biggest danger is fire. It starts fast and spreads in minutes, and the lanes are too narrow for a fire truck. This is why the first project starts here.
A simple warning system could catch these dangers early, before a fire spreads.
Water & Sanitation
Clean water is hard to find here, even on a normal day. Many families must share very few toilets. Dirty water and poor sanitation make children sick often. Being sick means missed school and medical costs that families cannot pay.
Access to Technology
In Korail, there is no system to warn people when a fire starts. No alarm. No alert. In wealthier parts of Dhaka, basic safety technology is everywhere. Here, it is not. Children in this programme build the tools their community is missing — starting with a fire alert system. In doing so, they also gain real technical skills and a path to a career in technology. The same technology that protects richer neighbourhoods should protect this one too.
“These aren't problems to be pitied. They're problems waiting for someone from inside the community to solve them. That's what we build.”
School is good. It is not enough.
Reading and arithmetic matter. But they do not make a child's home safer. After school, we teach these children to build real answers to the problems around them.
Every child deserves the chance to shape their own future.
In Korail, a child can build a fire-alert system for the neighborhood her family lives in.
Give these children the same tools, and they will solve problems that matter.
Today
These children should not have to wait ten years to face the dangers they live with right now. We give them the tools today.
Tomorrow
A child who can spot a problem, use technology to solve it, and see it through carries that skill for life.
More than charity.
We build changemakers.
We don't teach children to memorise. We teach them to build. They find a real problem in their own community and design a working answer to it.
Each child finds a real problem in Korail and builds a real solution.
This is the moment a student becomes a changemaker. Not a school project — a real answer to a real danger they live with.
Four moves. A clear, research-based way of mentoring.
Observation
We start with what the child sees in their own community — what hurts, what's missing.
Framing
A mentor works one-on-one to turn a big problem into a question the child can answer.
Prototype
The child builds, tests, fails, tries again. Guided, but never given the answers. Failure is part of learning.
Ownership
The result is a solution that is theirs — built from their own life.
We didn't start with Korail by accident.
It's where we began.
How we started.
The Tech Academy's very first work was teaching street children — many from Korail itself. This community is where we started.
CAFFE (Computers Are Free For Everyone) is a registered UK charity. It partners with us to give free computer and job training to young people from low-income homes — from coding and robotics to web design and trades.
Projects open for sponsorship now
Korail Fire-Alert System
In Korail, fire spreads fast and there is no system to warn people in time. In this project, a group of children from Korail are working towards a simple fire-alert system for their own community — learning real technical skills as they go. They began their year at The Tech Academy in September 2026.
What your sponsorship covers
Your sponsorship funds the year this group is in now. It supports 5 children, and each child costs €780 to carry through the full programme (Stages 1–3, plus their care package). You can sponsor one child, several children, or the whole group of 5 (€3,900 in total) — any amount helps carry a child through the year.
A child's idea is only the beginning. Real partners carry it forward.
When a Korail child builds a real solution, it needs real-world support to reach families. We partner with people who have spent decades inside these communities.
BLAST
Bangladesh Legal Aid & Services Trust — one of the country's largest legal aid organisations, working in over nineteen districts to support people who cannot afford a lawyer.
Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK)
A human rights and legal aid organisation, founded in 1986. Long history of supporting working children and women.
“Whenever a child creates a solution, the right people — with years of experience inside this community — are there to help it grow. The impact belongs to the community.”
Korail is full of talent. It is not full of opportunity.
Korail is home to thousands of children. Many are curious and capable, already solving small problems in their daily lives — fixing phones, wiring lights, helping their families get by. What they are missing is not talent. It is opportunity.
Most of our projects begin with the children themselves. They tell us the problems they see in their community, and we shape the project ideas together with them. Some ideas also come from a partner NGO, or from a sponsor like you. When we find a topic we can build a real project around, children can apply to take part.
This is the community your sponsorship reaches. For the Korail Fire-Alert project, the first group has been chosen from the children who applied, and their year at The Tech Academy began in September 2026. You can follow their progress in our updates.
The people below are not the students in the programme — their details stay private. These are examples of the kind of children who live and learn in Korail, and of the talent this community holds.
Real children's details stay private. Sponsors get private updates on their progress — photos and milestones — in a secure area for sponsors only, to protect each child's privacy.
Three funded stages. One real-world goal.
Every project in our Sponsor a Child programme follows the same path. A child moves through five stages. We and our partners cover the first stage (selection) and the last stage (implementation). Your sponsorship covers the three stages in the middle — the learning itself. For the Korail Fire-Alert project, Stage 0 is already complete: your sponsorship funds the year this group has now started.
Selection
- Complete for the Korail Fire-Alert group, who were selected and started in September 2026
- TTA and BLAST identify and vet children from the pool of applicants; families give informed consent before the child joins
Onboarding
- 13 technologies explored
- Builds empathy and a problem-solving mindset
Foundation
- Develops the specific skills a real project needs
- Works steadily toward that real project
Incubation
- Prototypes and tests the real solution
- Partners with stakeholders to put it to use
Child Welfare
- Transport to and from TTA
- Snacks during sessions
- Soap, shampoo, and hygiene items
- Uniform to wear at TTA
That's it — €780 covers everything one child needs: all sessions, materials, prototype hardware, and the care package. Nothing more to pay.
Implementation
The journey doesn't end with a working prototype. With The Tech Academy alongside them, a student presents their solution to the people who can put it to use — NGOs, businesses and other stakeholders — so a classroom idea becomes something real families in Korail actually rely on.
- Student-led pitch to partners and funders
- The Tech Academy brokers the introductions
- Path from prototype to real-world rollout
Some solutions go further than others — implementation scales with the strength of the idea and the partners it attracts.
Have a question, or ready to give? Write to us directly.
Tell us what you have in mind. A member of The Tech Academy team will reply within 2 working days — no automated replies, no pressure.
The Tech Academy, operating under Gamify Limited. Banani, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Who we are
The Tech Academy is a brand of Gamify Limited, registered in Bangladesh. Full legal details on request.
How we report
- · Quarterly photo and progress updates.
- · Project demos at end of each cycle.
- · Annual outcomes report, with named partners.
- · GDPR-compliant data handling for EU donors.
Contact
- experts@thetechacademy.net
- +88 01347-351621
- Banani, Dhaka 1213, Bangladesh