What the SOFTys support

Oxfam’s Girls’ Education Programme

Pakistan has the 3rd largest out of school population in the world after Niger and India.  Shockingly only 2% of girls reach high school and the literacy rate for women is just 45%.  To make things worse 17% of primary schools don’t have school buildings and many others lack basic facilities.

Girls’ Education in Sindh
The recent floods in Pakistan put yet more strain on the fragile education system in the Sindh District of Pakistan, damaging 17% of primary schools in the area.  Yet even before the floods there were:
13,000 schools without buildings, 34,000 schools without electricity, 700 schools without boundary walls, 23 without toilet blocks, and 25,000 without drinking water facilities.
Understandably, work urgently needs to be done.

Why is Education important?
Education for girls is crucial.  Without an education, women cannot learn the skills to make their way out of poverty.  Furthermore educated women are less vulnerable to violence and honour killing.  Essentially no education = no voice. Educated women know their rights better – they also have the skills and confidence to be in charge of their lives.

Oxfam’s Girls’ Education Programme
Our current programme operates in 9 districts in Southern Punjab, and has multiple strands.  Firstly, it builds and rehabilitates girls’ primary schools, ensuring that they are equipped with clean drinking water facilities.  It also addresses the wider structural issues such as teacher training, community awareness, and the strengthening of school councils, who are responsible for running the schools.  Finally we are campaigning for an increase in GDP spending on education from 2% to 4%.

The Results so far...
Zainab Bibi is very happy to see her daughter’s good habits which she is gradually developing in school and demonstrating in her home as well. Nasreen is studying in grade 5 and keeps on educating her father, mother and other siblings to wash hands before eating and has pasted her hand made chart at the door of the toilet, which says “Keep the Toilet Clean”!

Basti Raham Shah loves the new equipped classroom:  “Now we sit on benches provided to us recently, it was very difficult during winter to sit on floor and we used to feel a lot of cold”.

Haji Allah Ditta Rakh Qadra Number Rajanpur (School Council member) looks ahead to the future,
 “Change is inevitable, though I might not be able to see the immediate results in my life. Our grand children and the children of their children will see that change that education could bring”. 

With Your Support
There are 8 schools which have been identified in the flooded areas of Dadu and Shahdadkot that are in desperate need of rehabilitation.

£100,000 will build/rehabilitate 7 – 8 schools, providing 2000 girls with a safe environment for quality education.