It takes two – Active Citizens open up new avenues in Multan

As young people growing up in Suraj Miani – a neighbourhood of Multan – Abdul Rahman and Shumaila Bibi always felt the absence of IT training institutes in the area. The nearest computer training institute is 7 – 8 kilometres away and the nearest internet café is 3 kilometres away.

Perhaps the absence of a technology institute is felt more acutely by young girls and women of the area. Multan being a conservative city, relatively more avenues for personal growth are open to men than women. This includes opportunities for higher education and professional courses. After graduating high school most women face added restrictions by their families, and unnecessarily venturing out of homes is frowned upon.

At the Active Citizens training that they attended Abdul Rahman and Shumaila proposed a facility where the residents of Suraj Miani – especially women could benefit from technology education and brush up their language skills.

 A local NGO offered them space in their offices to hold the classes, and the youth group managed to arrange 4 computers for the classes – including their personal lap top computers. Now came the hard part: convincing parents of young girls to let them attend the free computer and English classes.

Abdul Rahman and Shumaila arranged two separate meetings: one at the Union Council head quarters for the male members of the community, and one for women and young girls at the residence of a community member. Besides these community meetings the young Active Citizens also took part in a door-to-door awareness campaign to recruit students for the coaching centre.

When asked about the problems faced by the youth group, Abdul Rahman responded that: “the biggest hurdle faced by us was convincing parents of young girls to let them attend the classes. The area we live in is very conservative and women stepping out of their houses are frowned upon”.

Ultimately 90 women and 25 men signed up for the computer classes. As a bonus the young women were also offered and English language course taught by Shumaila while Abdul Rahman along with another volunteer teaches the computer classes. The students are tested after the course is completed and successful candidates are awarded a certificate by the youth group. The ages of the students range from 14 years to 23 years and classes are held four days a week.

Besides acquiring technical skills the training also gives the students the confidence to pursue more challenging opportunities. A clear indication of this is the fact that 3 girls after successfully attending the computer course managed to get jobs in private schools where they teach Microsoft Word and Excel to young female students. This has also inspired other women to sign up for the classes.

The rewards of education

Sadaf Javeed is a resident of village Dehri Maira located in a remote area of Abbottabad. Mos t people of the village live below the poverty line and live without basic amenities. The major source of income of the villagers is farming and raising livestock.

The literacy rate is also low with a 55% educated male population literacy rates amongst female as low as 20%. The low female literacy rate can be attributed to a scarcity of education facilities that cater to female students in the area or close to it. The nearest middle and high school are located about 17 kilometers from village.

Although lacking in education, the female members of the community are very hard workers and contribute equally if not more in the day-to-day tasks ranging from raising crops and daily chores. According to Sadaf even though women make huge contributions to the community they still feel unappreciated and think that they are excluded from the decision making process by the men.

Sadaf believes that one way to empower women and give them confidence is to offer them opportunities to educate themselves regardless of their age. Education not only helps women recognize their rights and become independent, but also increases their capacity to make larger contributions to their families and the society at large.

This is especially true for mothers. An educated mother can take care of her children and family in a better way. She can provide better guidance, be a better role model, and be more aware of her child’s health. An educated mother also places a higher priority on ensuring a good quality education for her children.

Sadaf decided to hold adult literacy classes at her own home. She invited the village women to attend these basic education classes. The women embraced this opportunity to learn but they faced resistance from their male family members: it was a difficult task in some cases to convince men that the women would spend time allotted previously to work and chores to attend classes.

In a bid to win the support of the male members of the village Sadaf, her mother, and aunt organized groups of women to hold discussions with male heads of families of the village about the importance of education at any age and to convince them to let the women of their household to attend the adult literacy classes.

Sadaf’s adult literacy centre started off with 10 members which has steadily risen to 28 members. Sadaf also reached out to different NGOs and government organizations and was able to secure free of cost books and stationary items for her literacy centre.

Teaching did not prove a hard task for Sadaf who has impressive credentials with a bachelors of arts in education and a masters of arts in Political Science. She did have to be very patient with women who could not read or write at all. To reach students such as this Sadaf adopted a visual style of teaching: she uses cutouts of letters and numbers, and pictures of places and animals to make learning a fun and interactive process.

For Sadaf the reward for her hard work and patience is the new-found confidence in her students and the ways in which education has made their lives easier and richer.

A second chance for mothers

Providing opportunities for education to young mothers has a two-fold effect: an adult has a second chance to get an education that they could not when they were younger, and secondly young mothers are more likely to raise educated children. Educated mothers also have the option of educating their children at home if they cannot afford the tuition fee or other expenses that are associated with sending a child to school.

The main reason that young girls don’t attend school is their family’s poor economic condition. Additionally, when a poor family is faced with a choice between sending a boy or a girl to school, more often than not they will opt for educating the male child.

A Social Action Project (SAP) named Steps Against Illiteracy was started in an impoverished area of Karachi to fund a school providing classes to young mothers and their children at a cost as low as possible, and sometimes free of cost for especially deserving students. The school is called “The Citizens Foundation School” and offers classes three days a week in the morning and afternoon.

Some of the goals of the school are to enable the students to write and read basic Urdu and English, and to be able to perform calculations for day-to-day tasks such as shopping and planning the household budget.

The school is meant to run for three months. In this time its students will not only gain knowledge that can be applied to daily tasks but will also give them the background and confidence to apply to a “proper” school. The Citizens Foundation School may be a short-term venture but its benefits may very well last for a long time.