HOPE BILAL COLONY VOCATIONAL CENTER

Imagine living in a village where education is deemed as not important. Being illiterate and uneducated slowly takes over your life as trying to find a well-paid job becomes tough. Unfortunately, this is the harsh reality for many children living in rural areas around Pakistan. HOPE an NGO in Pakistan is working extremely hard every day to provide basic needs, such as education, to deprived individuals. It is important to note that HOPE believes that education is the key to a successful society where individuals are aware of their right.

HOPE inaugurated a Vocational center, under the leadership of Dr. Mubina Agboatwalla- a child specialist in Karachi, in September, in one of the underserved areas of Karachi named Bilal Colony. This vocational center holds English language and Computer classes for the youth.

Bilal Colony Vocational center is funded by the Interim Development and Relief Foundation (IDRF).  There were quite a few challenges HOPE faced while setting up this vocational center which were: finding a location, Lack of Electricity, Lack of Teachers Willingness and trust issues.

The future aims of this project are distributing the certificates to the youth on completion of the course, Connecting young girls to relevant job opportunities after learning the course, and finally increasing the number of courses over time.

One of the biggest hurdle faced by HOPE – an Educational NGO in Pakistan was convincing the families of that area to allow their children and the young girls and boys to gain education via our vocational center. The courses are for two months each and during the span of two months parents pick and drop their children by themselves and they are quite satisfied by the course material and performance level of their children.

These classes have proved to be beneficial for many individuals because they can now cope up with the competition and be a greater cause as they are now well equipped with computer and English language skill which necessary to survive in this dynamic environment.

Currently there are more than 80 students learning diverse skills and many young women of that area challenging the stereotypical ‘house wife” perception by gaining computer and English language skills. These students are eager to learn and are passionate about earning a living out of the learned skills.