Malala Educational Project

A Free Literacy & Arts School for rural children and underprivileged female housemaids in Lahore, Pakistan, inspired by the story of Malala Yousafzai.

I am Anser Bhatti, Director of Peace Ambassadors Pakistan, and, along with our International Coordinator Seth Kinzie, would like to extend a warm invitation to you to help us re-open the Malala Educational Project for rural children and housemaids in Lahore, Pakistan.

Unfortunately, due to the extremely volatile understanding of educating girls in Pakistan, the school was threatened by religious extremists after being open for one year. We subsequently closed it to protect the safety of our students and staff, back in 2013.

We now have a comprehensive plan in place to restart our Malala Educational Project for rural children and housemaids in a safe and secure environment, inside a guarded housing community, and with a security guard posted outside.

5 publically certified, female teachers will teach basic reading and writing skills in Urdu and English, in addition to mathematics and art, to the children, who receive 4-6 hours of school five times a week. Girls and boys are taught in one classroom together. Many families are uncomfortable with their daughters being taught by male teachers, which is why having female instructors is so important. The housemaids will be taught literacy skills in addition to contemporary social issues.

Why are housemaids also our students?  They are all women who were denied education when they were younger, being forced to work at a young age to support their families.

The children we will be teaching come from a small country village outside Lahore.  Their families are poor and cannot afford to send them to school, which are often too far to walk to. They were delighted to be a part of our project 3 years ago, and we're so excited to welcome them back to school at the end of the year!

We thank you  for your generous spirit!


PEACE AMBASSADORS PAKISTAN


WEBSITE: www.peaceambassadorspakistan.org

Peace Ambassadors Pakistan was founded in September 2009 by Inderias Dominic Bhatti with a service-based mission of peacemaking in the Eastern Pakistani region. Centered in Lahore, it is an interfaith congregation of Sikhs, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and humanitarian-minded members, rooted in the Anabaptist tradition of pacifism in addition to the Unitarian Universalist value of the restoration of dignity and self-worth to the oppressed. 

With the passing of the founder’s death in July, 2010, at the age of 17 Anser Bhatti, with the help of his mother, took it upon himself to continue the work of his father. Over the previous year, Inderias had established an official partnership with the international nonprofit Monks Without Borders as the primary Central Asia interfaith chapter. Anser maintained a friendship with its Director of Outreach, Seth Kinzie, who, from his home in Eastern Oregon, has moved on from Monks Without Borders to serve as international coordinator for Peace Ambassadors Pakistan, and even visited PAP and the school's staff in Lahore in Spring, 2015. Today, Seth makes his living as a piano composer in Oregon. 

This past year, the organization has focused on assisting victims of the terrorist bombings on Easter Sunday. 

PAP would like to extend our deep appreciation to Dennis and Sally Brown family of Murrieta, Ca and members of the Follen Church a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Lexington, Ma for their support. We would also like to thank their former minister, the late Rev Polly Guild, who helped over the years in so many wonderful ways.

OVERVIEW
Young girls in rural Pakistan face a difficult life. They live in an environment where international agencies estimate only 1 out of 10 of their female companions are literate, and about half of all children stay home from school to help their family work or take care of younger siblings. This is a panorama of life the countryside, whether it be in the Indus River plains to the West, or the unforgiving Hindu Kush mountains in the North.

A variety of limiting factors contribute to this problem for girls: feudal, patriarchal societal structures, expectations and stereotyping in gender roles, traditional systems maintained by a public / private divide, and an absence of appropriate responses to alleviate the crisis. The amount of work expected from children in poorer and larger families is substantially heavier than in more well-to-do households, and so
work interferes with their ability to study.

Worse yet, around 60% of girls are forbidden to walk to school alone and some are forbidden to receive any education due to religious restrictions. This arises out of a mixing together of the barbaric Pashtunwali code of ethics combined with the most conservative forms of Sharia law, taken from the Qur’an and Hadith. Many Westerners would be surprised to hear that, taken on its own, many Pakistani women of college age would prefer to live under Shariah law than the current laws of the government. This is because the anti-woman, Shariah law that we hear about in the media has been severely muddled with the Pashtunwali, which includes an archaic system of gender roles created during prehistoric times.

The majority faith, Islam, like all religions, encourages both genders to receive an education. While males have an advantage in educational access, around 30% of all Pakistani males of literate age (that’s 24 million people over the age of 10) still cannot read or write.

 LOCATION



Map of Kasur, where the students live



Location of our Housing Society Classroom



On behalf of the all children and staff in Pakistan, thank you so much for your support! 

#GFMToSchool

BUDGET
ONE YEAR

School Expenses

Two Bedroom Apartment (classroom hall)

Monthly Rent
300 * 12  =
3,600$

Security Deposit (refundable)
2,000$

Utilities

Electricity bill (one year)
200 * 12 =
2,400$

Water and gas (one year)
60 * 12 =
720$

Backup Generator
(Power outages are rampant in Pakistan)
425$

Air Conditioner
(Summer temperatures in Lahore can approach 50 °C!)
450$

Items

Chairs for the students
12 * 15 =
180$

One TV Monitor                                                           150$

Textbooks, stationary, water cooler, school furniture
500$
______

10,425$

TEACHER’S SALARY

Pay for 1 Teacher (one month)
$56

Pay for 5 teachers (one month)
$281

Pay for 5 teachers (one year)
281 x 12 =
3,372$

Security Guard (one year)
150 * 12 =
1,800$

______

5,172$

 

GRAND TOTAL

US $                             PAK RUPEES

15,597                          1,632,226

All money granted from this campaign will go toward these expenses, as the organization sees fit.  The money will be sent via Western Union from America to Pakistan. We've found this to be the safest outlet.