Educating the street children in Peshawar.

Approximately, 10% of the street children in Peshawar are from the areas of Abdara (according to DOST survey on street children 2008). Majority of them are not availing formal education mainly due to poverty as they are the only bread earners of their families. Risks including safe survival on streets, health issues, physical and sexual abuse (both commercial and non-commercial), scavenging rubbish tips, begging, engaging in hazardous labors, drug abuse, drug trafficking and street crimes are lurking before them.

To reduce these risks and make the street children active citizens of the future, the young people who participated in the Active Citizens trainings have initiated a project of establishing an informal educational centre for them.

The Active Citizens held meetings with the local community members and convinced that an informal education centre needs to be established for the street children Secondly, they approached the parents of these street children and informed them how important it was for their children to go to school.

After this, the group of young active citizens identified a suitable place for the establishment of the education centre followed by deciding the syllabus and teachers for the institution. They found an empty suitable place for the institution within Abdara and decided to keep the syllabus very basic.

Once the institute had established, the group began registering the street children in the informal education centre. They enrolled around 20 street children. The young social workers begun teaching them and till date their education centre has 50 registered street children receiving education free of cost.