Pakistani School Security Improvements

Meet Mursal, age 16, currently enrolled in 7th grade at Barakat Elementary. She has two brothers and three sisters all of which are too young to work which puts a lot of pressure on Mursal to help out after school. Her father is a day laborer and her mother works in other houses in the town to help make ends meet. After school Mursal often takes care of her younger siblings as well as do chores around the house since her parents have to leave early in the morning to get to work. Since Mursal is the eldest there is a lot of pressure on her to leave school and join the work force to help support her parents and younger siblings.

Without our free education Mursal would likely have been pulled out of school already, thankfully since it doesn't cost her parents anything to send her to school she's been allowed to stay in school. Mursal's story is very similar to so many of our students, especially the girls, since once they hit a certain age or grade in school the families don't feel it is as much of a priority anymore. 

With the improvements we've made, and continue to make, we're seeing that parents are less resistent to let their children gain an education. Last month we did more work to Barakat Elementary and added more security cameras that were missing so that our students could feel safer. There is a lot of uncertainty in the area so we are doing everything we can to make school a safe place. Now that all of the necessary security measures have been mostly completed, with the exception of a few minor details, the government is finally letting up at least on that point. We've got a long road ahead of us but every day we are slowly making progress towards getting more children in Pakistan educated.