For 11-year-old Hammad, being able to go to school was his only wish that came true some 3-months after attending a rare class of non-formal education at a drop-in centre in Pir Wadhai.
Going to school also means that Hammad would no longer have to pull shopping trolleys all around the fruit bazaar for a meager Rs 50 per day. “I will not pull those heavy trolleys,” said Hammad in a determined tone, “I will go to school.”
Hammad is one of the many children at the drop-in-centre of the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) in Pir Wadhai where marginalised children of society are offered an opportunity to dream of a better future.
The three-month training of non-formal education and skills such as sewing and painting is aimed at providing the city’s poor and marginalised children mainstream education.
“Currently 98 kids (5-17 years of age) are enrolled in different programmes where they benefit from various services as psychosocial support, non-formal education, medical support, vocational skill training and recreational activities,” said Drop-in-Centre Manager Sohail Akhter.
Since January 2011, SPARC’s lone drop-in-centre has served more than 1700 children in Rawalpindi.
Children of age 5-12 attend the non-formal education course where they learn Urdu, English and Mathematics. The course has been designed to help them get admission at primary school level.” While the children of age 12-17 receive arts and crafts training comprising of sewing, dough making, and henna application art along with basic education. Apart from the
colourful classroom and fun art classes, the nutritious lunch is what drives many to the centre.
The downstairs section of the centre is where the boys and girls are taught separately in small classrooms with brightly coloured walls.
While upstairs little girls, dressed in colourful clothes and wearing shy smiles, were busy in sewing and painting.
When asked how she heard about the centre, little Naeema said her mother’s aunt told them that children do not have to pay fees or buy uniforms for the school. We just wear our casual clothes.” The 12-year old added that her mother was not concerned about education, “She told me to learn sewing as quickly so that I can start earning,” he added.
This small town of Rawalpindi comprises of a majority of Pathans and a minority of Punjabis, and Kashmiris.
The community refuses at first to send their children to school as their priority is to send children to work to earn money, explained Gulnaz Zahid, the psychologist at the centre. “So we first persuade the parents of the kid to send their young children to school, apart from working,” she said.
Vocational training is a great incentive to encourage parents to send their children to the centre.
Once the children are admitted in to the centre, the prime task is to treat with the psychological stress, faced by almost 50 percent of the children here, due to extreme poverty and severe financial crisis at their homes, she added.
It is uncertain whether the children will be able to join formal schools after the three-month training at the centre.
Moreover the school dropout rates are high and it seems that not many will be able to complete desired level of education.
Nevertheless the programme does offer hope to the working children and their families of a brighter future.
