Buy school supplies for gypsy children in Pakistan

In my community many poor gypsy people are living and they work as labour on daily wages. Their women work in vegetable markets. They are not paying attention to their children as they are busy earning their bread and butter. These children are vulnerable to many negative activities like street crimes, begging, drug addiction, tribal fights etc. 

 Before start of our social action project we did a survey and through it we came to know that these poor gypsy children are very intelligent and also have a desire for education. Unfortunately they don’t have any source and guidance through which they can start and continue their education. Their parents have no time and no idea how their children could start and continue their education. Moreover they can’t afford the proper education of their children.

With the aim to provide them some basic education we started a social action project named FREE GYPSEY EDUCATION last year with minimum resources. We voluntarily started teaching to these poor children. Our volunteers spent two hour daily with these kids and teach them the basic education. We developed a simple curriculum for them to teach them basic URDU, ENGLISH, MATH. We also focused on their health and hygiene to improve their living standard by giving basic information on cleanliness. We convinced their parents to send their children to our school on daily basics. After providing them basic education we are enrolling the interested children in Govt. schools so that they can continue their study in a proper manner. With help of local community and by raising funds we have provided books, uniforms and shoes to those students.

We are also monitoring that these enrolled children are regularly attending their class and in evening through our GYPSY EDUCATION SCHOOL we are helping them in doing their home work. Now we have 180 kids studying in our GYPSY EDUCATION SCHOOL and 11 have been enrolled in nearby Govt. School. 26 students have given up their begging and now they are working in grocery market and also studying in our school. They have got these small jobs due to the basic education and life skills they received from our school.

Please explain how you have used the funds. Who all benefitted from your efforts (please specify the number of people)?

Our school had no proper shelter and we were teaching these gypsy kids in an open ground. Some times it became very difficult for us and our students to continue our task due to the weather condition. Multan has very hot weather climate and with out any shelter or shadow some times we were not able to continue our daily class. Moreover there was no specific space for us to run our school.

The funds we received from you through British Council, we utilize it to build our own one class room school to ensure the continuity of our school. Gypsy people allowed us in making this one class room school within their community and also helped us in building this tent school.

 Our 180 students now have a sheltered class room for them and we can run our daily class in all kind of weathers. Students have a proper space to sit and now they come to our school with more interest. Many other gypsy people those were not sending their children to our school, now they are also showing interest to send their kids to our school because our school have taken a proper shape (hut). We have placed banners and flags to highlight this free education point to attract many other students. The breakup of our expenditures is given below:

 Sr.

Item

Quantity

Rate

Amount (PKR)

01

Bamboo

11

PKR 240 per

2640

02

Rope

04

PKR 100

400

03

Tarpaulins

30 feet

PKR 52 per foot

1560

Total

4600

Were you able to meet all your objectives? And how has this funding benefitted your project and the community members in general?

 This small funding helped us to develop a permanent place for our school. Now our volunteers have a permanent place where they can teach their students. This tent school also helped us to attract many other children those were not able to join our school. Many parents are showing their interest in sending their children to our school. Through it is a small step but it will help us to provide basic education to those poor children in a batter way. Our students are happy that now their school have taken a shape. Through this funding we are now able to take our school to the next step where we could start proper education and increase the duration of our school. This will help is in continuity of our social action projects.

I would like to say thanks to you for your kind support.