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The Boat People (Beday) are a poor, nomadic group in Bangladesh. The main profession of this community consists of traditional healing, snake charming, selling of talisman, small business, magic show, etc. to the development of modern health services, demand for their services has decreased now and they have become poor and vulnerable. Besides, due to their nomadic profession, Beday children are totally deprived of education. It is one of the main reasons why the Beday community fails to come out of their traditional occupation and why they are completely isolated from the mainstream population. In this participatory action research project the researcher is trying to understand the challenges the Beday community faces today. The researcher is also providing skill training to the adolescent girls of the community to build their capacity for earning extra income and integrates themselves with the mainstream population. The project also envisages the establishment of a floating mobile school for non-formal education of the Beday children. The project locations are Lauhajong thana of Munshiganj District and Aminbazar area of Savar thana, Dhaka. Preliminary findings of the project encouragingly indicated that the children who had never been enrolled in any school earlier are capable to grasp their lessons both in Bangla and English as well as very enthusiastic about their learning. Training received by the adolescent girls on sewing and tailoring have inspired many to go for small entrepreneurship for earning better livelihood.
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