The Student Residence for Girls at “Saint Michael Mission”

Update. October 2025

The ground floor of the Residence for girls will be ready in a few months. In these weeks the first floor construction is getting ready to start. On this floor the religious sisters will live. They will take care of the girls and will do a precious work of evangelization in the villages of the area.

Thanks to the collaboration of many supporters and friends, will make possible and quick the conclusion of both ground and first floor so that the residence will be ready to receive the first group of girls at the beginning of the new academic year, in summer 2026.

Saint Michael the Archangel Missione, Kamudpur

At “Saint Michael Mission,” in Kamudpur, Bangladesh – entrusted to the Missionaries of the Diocese of Ibarra (Ecuador) – a new project is calling up the efforts of generous friends to support the tea workers families of the area. It is the building of a Student Residence for Girls.

The land of tea

The province of Sylhet, in the northeastern part of Bangladesh, is characterized by the tea plantations and forests where paan leaves and betel nuts are cultivated. There, particularly in the district of Moulvibazar, the country’s poorest live and work. This group is made up of Bangladesh’s indigenous tribes, most of whom are Hindu, while there are some Christians. Members of these groups are often marginalized due to the difference in their languages and religion from the majority of the population.

A life of great poverty

The social and economic condition of these, the poorest of the poor, is extreme: they live in small earth homes, without electricity or potable water, nor sanitary lavatories. Their income barely provides for their subsistence. A day’s wages for a worker on a tea plantation is $1.50 USD and the tea companies’ regulations generally do not allow more than one employee from the same family on the payroll, therefore a family must survive on a single income.

The families of those employed by the tea companies and the paan and betel farmers have very limited access to education and healthcare due to the insufficient number of facilities as well as difficulties with transportation. In these areas, the schooling rate is very low, while school dropout and early marriage are frequent.

Saint Michael Mission

Saint Michael Mission, entrusted to the missionaries of the Diocese of Ibarra, Ecuador, offers pastoral and charitable services in Kamudpur, district of Moulvibazar, to the inhabitants of an area of approximately 350 square miles. The mission’s health services center has already been constructed and will be inaugurated in early 2024. The first steps are being taken to build the student residence for girls from the surrounding villages whose families are employed by the tea plantations and farms. Father Francesco Rizzo directs the mission.

The student residence for girls

The student residence for girls at Saint Michael Mission will house approximately 30 female students, providing optimal conditions in which to study and receive nourishing meals, as well as spiritual and human formation, encouraging personal and social growth. The student residents will be able to attend classes at the nearest school less than two miles away. The residence will have two floors, with foundations allowing for the addition of a third floor. The cost of construction in local currency is BDT 15,578,234, which is $142,000 USD

Sustaining the construction of the student residence for girls

It is possible to help fund this project with a donation to the Diocese of Syhlet, by depositing to one of the following accounts:

In Bangladesh: Bank account of the Diocese of Sylhet: The Sylhet Catholic Diocese, Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC, Account number: 2807005921. Swift code: CCEYBDDH. Address: Sylhet Branch, 982 Dargah Gate. Sylhet, Bangladesh.

In Ecuador: Banco del Pichincha savings account: Bank: Banco Pichincha C.A. Bank address: AV. AMAZONAS Y ALONSO PEREIRA, MATRIZ, 4560. Swift code: PICHECEQXXX. Account holder: Francesco Rizzo. Account number: 2203737511. Identification number (Ecuadorian cedula): 0959298720. Email: francescorizzo27@gmail.com; mail: shaplaperilbangladesh@gmail.com

Through card: