Moder Patshala is a non-profit community based after school education organization. It was established in 2004 by Ali Zaker and his wife Najneen Kabita’s in their family home with the assistance of Mohammed Jahangir Alam Khan. In Bengali, “Moder Patshala” means “our school” or "our learning house.”

Moder Patshala came into being with the goal of supporting Bangladeshi American families with their children’s education through after-school tutoring and other educational programming. In the early nineties, they saw many fellow Bangladeshi immigrant parents like themselves challenged as they navigated the U.S. education system because of differences in language, culture and education system. Newly arrived immigrants directed their time and energy to provide for their families’ basic needs, leaving little to no time and energy to foster their children’s academic development outside of school. As a result, their children’s educational development was hampered. This lack of parental guidance, and lack of English language skills, meant that many children neither had a clear understanding of their educational goals, nor an interest in learning the culture of either their home country or the adopted one. As a result, many second generation immigrant children found it difficult to adapt to this new environment and were falling behind academically and socially. Gradually, the parents started to realize that their children were missing out on opportunities for a better life in the U.S. Ali Zaker, Najneen Kabita and Mohammed Jahangir Alam Khan responded to this need by establishing Moder Patshala in Ali Zaker’s home to help children in the Bangladeshi American community move closer to accessing valuable educational support and achieving their full potential.

Moder Patshala’s services are delivered mainly by volunteers. A number of volunteers from Bangladeshi community take turns to assist the students. Since 2012, many students of diverse backgrounds from the Graduate School of Education of University of Pennsylvania, the Wharton School, the Asian American Studies Program of University of Pennsylvania, and Drexel University have joined as volunteer tutors at Moder Patshala.