Support a TCF School in Pakistan for a Year

We are pleased to inform you that 67 new operational school units came on-stream on 1 April 2010 and a similar number are planned for the next academic year starting in April 2011! TCF now has a nation-wide presence in 68 centres across Pakistan with a phenomenal 660 school units teaching 92,000 of the poorest children – 46% girls - regardless of ethnicity, gender, caste or religion. The 660 school units are made up of 504 primary schools including 100 afternoon shifts, and 156 secondary schools including 19 afternoon shifts. With each new school requiring running costs of about £9,000, this means that TCF will need an additional £600,000 of income in each of 2010 and 2011 to support this.

More news on TCF's achievements:

TCF has won one of three gold medals in an art competition run by The Indus Valley School of Art in which it was competing against the elite schools in Karachi. This year, ten year old Shahid-ul-Allah, a student of TCF School – Mohammadi Goth won the 2nd prize in Unilever’s “Art from the Heart” competition.

Academically, TCF has gone from strength to strength. Monitoring and evaluation benchmarks and processes for evaluating student performance and teaching quality have recently been devised and put in place for grades III to VIII. These culminate in an Academic Audit Report which is shared by all stakeholders and forms the basis for on-going academic improvement. Each year increasing numbers of our grade X students have achieved A+, A and B Grades in the external State Board Matriculation examinations. In the most recent academic year, 49% of students attained A+ and A Grades - 10% more than last year and well above the national average with some of our students ranking in the top 10 in these exams. A commendable result considering that TCF’s students come from some of Pakistan’s poorest communities.

Some of the programmes that TCF has piloted are coming to fruition. For the first two below, TCF partners with other NGOs (who bear all costs) and the programmes are being rolled-out to an increasing number of TCF school buildings which are put to use in the evenings, weekends and school holidays:

• Female Adult Literacy Program: This is an accelerated three-month program using specially designed books and learning material. At the end of the program participants should be able to read and understand a newspaper, write a simple letter, plus acquire some basic maths skills. To date around 1,500 women have benefited from this programme. A seventy-something year old woman thanked TCF at her ‘graduation’: ‘we were blind – now we can see’;

• Vocational Training Program (accredited by City & Guilds): Since there was always going to be a significant number of TCF children unable to further themselves academically after matriculation, a key object for TCF has been to develop a robust platform for these students to acquire relevant vocational skills. The following courses are tailored to skills in short supply and run for six months and one year: General electrician; General fitter and fabrication; Plumber and pipe-fitting; Refrigeration and air-conditioning; and Car and motor-cycle repairing. Separate courses are designed and run for women. We plan to gradually expand the number and range of courses as well as the number of TCF schools where they will be run. Currently, very few of the participants are TCF children. Most of the participants are the older children in these urban slums and villages but, in time, this will benefit increasing numbers of TCF students who do not go on to college after they matriculate;

• Mentoring programme: The mentors are often officers in large companies. The programme is structured around an 8 week course with clear milestones developed to build the confidence of participating TCF students who will have had very little exposure to the world of the mentor. Early results show that the students learn to trust their mentor, calling him or her for advice even after the end of the programme. This programme has been running for two years during which 250 mentors have helped 1,200 TCF students. Although currently implemented only in urban centres, we plan that by 2012, 2,500 mentors will have taken all 8,000 Grade VIII students on this voyage of self-discovery;

• The TCF College Placement Programme: Funding has been provided by Standard Chartered Bank over the past four years for this means-tested college placement programme through which the brightest TCF students are provided with scholarships to universities. TCF currently supports 1,300 scholarship students doing various degrees including engineering, medicine, business management and chartered accountancy. The TCF Placement Desk provides support and advice to students making the transition to further education and has also helped 800 TCF students make the transition from school to work;

• Water pumps have been installed at 10 schools as a pilot project providing clean water to the local community in the mornings and evenings. Designed to help with hygiene and community building, the programme is still in its early stages;

• The TCF Summer camp takes place in TCF schools in Karachi and Lahore over a three week period during the summer holidays. Volunteers – students from leading schools, colleges and universities - work with TCF students from grades VII, VIII & IX primarily to enhance their written and spoken English language skills but there are also science, art and craft sessions;

• FTCF has recently piloted a school “twinning” initiative between 30 students in years 9 & 10 at a girls’ school in Luton and girls at a TCF school in Lahore. The students explore similarities and differences between their schools: what they study, how they spend their weekends and evenings; as well as their favourite subjects, sports, books, hobbies, food, interests, hopes, ambitions and aspirations. Reflecting on the initiative, Assistant Head teacher, Mr Palmer explains that his teachers and pupils were delighted and excited about being paired with a TCF school in Pakistan. As teachers, they believe that by bringing our two schools together our pupils will better understand their place in the world and be better equipped to live in it. FTCF plans to twin other TCF schools with UK schools in the years to come.

In essence, we build schools, we staff them with well-trained, committed teachers, and we make sure that our students receive a modern, well-rounded education. To us, education is about more than just academic training – it’s about learning to be confident, to think critically, and to be good citizens. And because TCF is transparent at every level and managed professionally, its template is able to be rolled-out efficaciously.

We have found that there is a near-insatiable appetite for education in Pakistan, not least for girls. Children are the same everywhere, excited to be in a classroom, enjoying the playground but hungry for knowledge and craving the opportunity to fulfil their potential.

Thanks to your continued support, TCF is opening the doors of education, ambition and success to thousands of disadvantaged children from Pakistan's most deprived areas, where the need is most dire and where most children would otherwise not receive an education.

We hope that with news of TCF's expansion, you will renew your much needed support. It is only with the help of our supporters that TCF is able to grow successully and transform the lives of deserving children and their families across Pakistan.

To find out more about Friends of The Citizens Foundation, please email us at info@FTCF.org.uk or call 0845 230 1947.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you and warm regards, Friends of The Citizens Foundation

Suite 420, Regent House Business Centre, 24-25 Nutford Place, Marble Arch, London, W1H 5YN Tel: 0845 230 1947 I Fax: 020 7183 7085 Email: info@FTCF.org.uk I website: www.FTCF.org.uk

Links:

• FTCF website
• Creating Agents of Positive Change – By Dr Marie Lall