Helping Hands

All for a good cause!

By Zarnab Amin

When I was a tenth grader, a class fellow of mine was not able to pay her fee; for that reason she had to repeat a year. Unfortunately, she was not able to pay her fee the next year, too, and that incident made me realise that while we enjoy many luxuries without even thinking about them, there are people around us who cannot afford even the necessities of life. My father, seeing me depressed, encouraged me to establish a welfare organisation which could be used as a forum to collect funds to enrol needy children in schools where they could get proper formal education. Thus, with the help of some of my friends and relatives I formed the Youth Welfare Organisation — the first organisation of its kind established and run solely by teenagers.

The basic aim of YWO, which is now a registered NGO, is to provide educational assistance to needy students up to matriculation/O’ Levels without any discrimination of gender or religion. These are usually children of house maids or gardeners, etc. They are enrolled into good English medium schools near their areas of residence. F.B. Model Girls High School, S.M. Boys Secondary School and Bright Career School, to name a few, are educating our scholarship-holder students at a discounted fee. These schools are well-known for their good standard of education. Right now, we are working on a limited scale with over 40 students in eight different schools, but our future aim is to build free schools, well-equipped with all the necessary facilities.

We decided to undertake an adventurous task this summer. We visited these schools and presentations were given, followed by quizzes and distribution of gifts to students for right answers. We were not daunted by the heat, or waking up early in the morning, or spending our pocket money on sweets and crepe papers so that we’d have somethings to give as prizes to the children.

We realised how amazing, interesting and awakening it was to observe these kids who shared the same feelings about friends, studies and not to forget, the T20 World Cup. Some of the people who participated in the programme have these things to share with Us:

Mariyam: This summer, we visited a number of schools. Amongst the most memorable was the F.B. Model Girls High School — a three-room community school. We found a good forty students there — bright eyed and excited to learn. They spoke little English, but knew some words that their teachers had possibly made them rote-learn.

Using a slideshow full of informative images, we talked to them about the importance of sports, health and hygiene, respect for elders, hazards of smoking, importance of education and career choices.

The children, by the end of the day, were very excited. They left the premises happily carrying gifts and sweets, ready to narrate the unusual event to their parents, as one girl was seen informing her mother joyously who had come to pick her.

The teachers and the principal did not let us go before we had taken refreshments. We were humbled, touched, and inspired by the hospitality shown to us. It was a tiny, poorly equipped school, after all. Do they not deserve our support?

We left with their course book list that we had promised to provide at the start of the school year.

Aqsa Waraich: A friend of mine called me and asked if I could help her in preparing a presentation on the topic “Importance of sports”. I asked her the purpose of such a presentation and she told me casually that she was doing an internship at YWO. Upon further questioning, she told me that she and her friends were doing an awareness programme in which they would visit different schools to conduct interactive sessions in order to discuss topics like education, smoking, hazards of pollution, health and nutrition, and sports. At the end, my friend invited me to come to their first trip; I promised to show up.

On the appointed day, I went to the school accompanied with the other girls.

We stepped out of the car and entered the school. To tell you the truth, I was appalled to see that the school was so tiny and it did not even have a playground. I thought the children were getting education in a box! These students had no access to the facilities that modern schools have like multimedia, computer labs etc, and I thought that they would probably not be bright. However, I was proven wrong.

Once we started the discussion session, the students listened to every word we uttered and answered every question cheerfully. At the end of our visit we gave them gifts and took pictures with them.

When we went to the next school, I told the students there the importance of keeping ourselves physically and spiritually clean. I told them how we could prevent many diseases by taking care of little things like washing hands and boiling drinking water. The students hung on to my every world and participated actively in the question-answer session.

The whole experience touched my soul. I was stunned by their brilliance, their dreams, their show of respect, their eagerness to gain knowledge, their pure conscience and realised that they are better than us in so many ways which makes me want to be close to them. These children might not have the required resources yet they are ambitious and want to realise their dreams.

Contrary to that, many students who attend excellent schools, get expensive tuitions, have access to the Internet, television and the best literature, sometimes lack the passion to serve our nation. Many resourceful students only dream of building a brilliant career only for themselves and their family.

I strongly pray that more people get in touch with these brilliant children so that we can integrate our resources and their dreams to make a better society. The best way to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor, I believe, is for students from different social standings to interact and communicate with each other.

Life is not just about going in your car to school, gossiping about others, backbiting about friends, scowling over your break-ups, and being saddened by the new shade of eye-shadow which was sold-out. It is about discovering the rest of the world, studying the way people live and how it is different from ours, so we can be thankful for what we have and give away more to those who really need it but do not ask.

I would like to invite all of you to join hand with us. Just a little act of generosity can mean a lot to someone. It is not the duty of the state only to provide the poor with their needs, but it is the duty of every citizen of our society to contribute to the well being of its members.