Schools: Educating underserved youth in Pakistan

With school now out for the summer, a few reflections on the past academic year:

Final exams for 5^th, 8^th and 9^th graders were over by mid March and the students were extremely successful with a 99% pass rate. Our 5^th graders did so well on the exams that when the local community received word, admissions went up by 50 children total for the next school year. Next year both schools will also add grade 10, with our first class graduating in June of 2020. With new admissions for the 2019-2020 school year, the total strength of students is at almost 400.

Through the Global Kid Connect Pen Pal Program, the upper grade students have corresponded with their pen pals in the US through letters and photos. The Power to Pakistan Club at Aspen High School is working on a fundraiser cookbook and one of the students in Aspen has set up a mobile ice cream bike in order to raise money for our student’s scholarships!

In April, we conducted a workshop on ‘Discipline in the Classroom’ for our teachers in order to guide them on how to create a respectful classroom environment. This included how to support students to learn responsibility and self-discipline. A second teacher training will be conducted in August before the classes resume after summer break.

It has been an incredibly successful school year with attendance rates and re-enrollment at its highest. We contribute this to our student’s hard work proving to the community that education is an important step in climbing out of generational poverty. We also contribute our success to our amazing teachers who work tirelessly to support our students.

Help support our 2019-2020 school year! With our increase in students we will need more support than ever! Consider donating directly to our projects through their new Global Giving page at https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/schools-educating-underserved-youth-in-pakistan/

Thank you for your continued support!

Links:

• Our NEW global giving page- donate DIRECT to our projects!

As part of our youth education program we offer the upper grades girls a chance to start to learn vocational skills as well as the opportunity to learn more about what career opportunities exist for them post graduation from our schools.

We want to respect the local traditions and culture of our communities, while, yes, pushing the envelope in terms of building gender equity and empowering women, but also doing it in a way that does not alienate.  We have started with basic home economic skills (sewing, tailoring and stitching) with our youth because it is acceptable among their families. Through this we are able to see them grow and become more curious about what other skills they could learn. We discuss with them different career paths beyond home economics and host different professionals to come to the school to give presentations.

Once our first class graduates in June 2020 we are going to be working with the local government technical training centers, called TEVTAs, to assist us in enrolling the students. Once enrolled the girls and boys can choose from around 20 different technical skills programs. The TEVTAs we are partnering with will even be supporting our girls with a $5 a month stipend to prove to the families that the girls can already make an impact on the household income and that marriage is not needed as a solution to relieve the pressure of her being a financial burden.

Thank you for supporting our students on their road to a brighter future!