Effective community mobilization and meaningful participation of parents and community elders paves the way for the betterment of education, but before the inception of Sindh Community Mobilization Program’s (CMP’s) interventions in 2013, remote communities of Kamber Shahdadkot, one of CMP’s target districts, did not realize the importance of education.
Communities were facing enormous challenges pertaining to: their children’s access to quality education; a lack of basic facilities, such as safe drinking water, functional toilets, furniture and fixtures and a boundary wall; teachers’ absenteeism; and girl students dropping out due to lack of access and gender-based discrimination. These key challenges, faced by many villages, were felt particularly in Azizullah Qureshi, one of the CMP-focused villages in Kamber Shahdadkot.
Government Boys High School (GBHS) Azizullah Qureshi is a non-construction/neighboring school situated in Jurani Shareef Taluka Warah village. The village is 45 kilometers from the district headquarter and home to 300 households belonging to Tunia, Qureshi, Soomra and Lashari communities. Agriculture, cattle rearing and handicrafts are basic sources of survival for inhabitants.
CMP engaged communities through extracurricular activities to increase students’ enrollment and attendance, especially for girls. There were many activities that were jointly organized by CMP and the School Management Committee (SMC), including annual school days, cleaning activities, a sports gala, a women’s inclusion session, local resource generation, health and hygiene awareness sessions, International Women’s Day and International Mother’s Day. These activities fostered community participation and women’s inclusion and enabled them to become involved in local decision making.
Iron grills were installed using a CMP small grant to preserve school assets
Beside this achievement, CMP also provided a small grant amounting to PKR 150,000 to improve the school’s basic facilities to include separate washrooms for girls, safe drinking water, furniture, sports kits for students and whitewash. The improved facilities not only raised students’ excitement to attend classes regularly, but also increased enrollment from 83 girls to 150.
Now, parents and SMC members regularly visit the school to ensure day-to-day monitoring and teachers’ presence. The SMC chairperson shared that “students of our school are achieving high academic results and competing with students of other schools at taluka and district level in extracurricular activities.” He further added that “we appreciate CMP’s continuous guidance, due to which we were able to provide better education to our children.”
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CMP is a USAID-funded program that supports the Government of Sindh’s education reform and USAID’s Sindh Basic Education Program. CMP improves school resources and encourages community support for educational reform in Sindh province while identifying and addressing primary barriers to access, particularly for female students.
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