Hostels for women
Dear Sir,
Qatar is developing fast and a large number of expatriates are coming into the country to take up various jobs. The number of expatriate women moving into the country to work on company visas is also on the increase. But it is very hard to find comfortable accommodation in Qatar for women.
I would like to make a suggestion where the government or private parties can take the initiative of setting up facilities like hostels  exclusively for single women  .
The women can be provided with a single room with attached bath, a common kitchen shared by five or six inmates, a common leisure area,  gym and laundry. Facilities like these may be set up in various areas. I am sure this would be a great help for single women working here.

Jeena
(e-mail address supplied)

Good lessons
Dear Sir,
Where there’s a will there’s a way. Obstacles should not deter us; instead they should spur us to work harder so that we can overcome them. This thought of mine turned into my belief during my latest vacation when I met a group of children of my age and was privileged to realise the values that our teachers always want to instill in us.  How shamelessly we ignore them often!
The importance of helping the poor has been etched in my mind by my PE teacher Michael Brown. He uses every opportunity to explain to us that how very fortunate most of us  are because of our parents who are in a position to meet most of our needs.
Brown does everything to  make us realise that as a human being it is our responsibility to help the poor and the needy. His advice influenced me a lot while I was preparing for my assigned project of teaching a group of poor children.
I spent my latest vacation in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. While there, on my aunt’s repeated requests, I  decided to visit a village government school where my aunt used to work as a teacher. I thought it would  be a boring visit but I was proved dead wrong when I finally went there.
My meeting with the children of that school opened up my mind and I soon realised many facts. First, even though I knew my mother tongue more than them in an academic sense, they spoke it much better than me. Though I knew a lot about my culture and heritage,  those children lived by them.
Most of us in Qatar take education for granted but these village children feel blessed if they can go to school.
How most of us get bored eating the same meal day after day. But anybody who sees those students’  joy in eating the simple rice and pulses (distributed to them as part of the government’s mid-day meal scheme), we would never ever complain about the food we eat regularly here. Personally speaking, I would not even get that amount of joy even if my parents buy me a gadget I fancy most.
I would like to stand up and salute those children. The best part of my learning was to always look at the positive side of life.
I went to that village school initially to teach them something but I came back learning a lot. And I am looking forward to revisit them next year.

Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury
DPS MIS (Grade 9)
Doha