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23. Pakistan community program focuses on education to improve quality of life
Our Zamzama gas project in Pakistan is located in the district of Dadu, which lies approximately 500 kilometres north of the coastal city of Karachi in Sindh Province. The area suffers from very low rainfall, lacks basic infrastructure and has limited educational facilities or opportunities. Our community development program is aiming to facilitate the empowerment process and improve the quality of life for the poor and the vulnerable people living in the areas where we operate. Education is considered to be a vital part of this process.
Prior to developing the program, consultative workshops were organised to ensure effective community participation and ownership of the project and to assess the critical needs in the area. These consultations revealed that access to quality education was the primary concern, with girls and women having been particularly disadvantaged.
Further research in Dadu showed that there were clear opportunities to improve school infrastructure; enhance teaching methodologies; and increase the motivation of teachers, children and parents towards education.
As part of its program, the Zamzama community development team has implemented a two-phase project. Initially, two local NGOs (Child Development Organization and Village Shadabad Welfare Organization) were selected to develop an education program. This then led to the establishment of five primary schools in the Johi area of Dadu. With support from the Company, the schools have been provided with appropriate infrastructure, furniture and equipment, and trained teachers.
The project has included a number of key components:
Capacity building - The aim has been to enhance the skills and knowledge of the local NGOs and schoolteachers through training, to ensure effective project management and improvement in the quality of education. Raising awareness of basic human rights and building confidence in the local community were integral parts of the project.
Livelihood opportunities - The project has provided income for the local NGOs, schoolteachers and vendors by ensuring that employment opportunities have been filled by people from the area.
Participation and partnership - Regular multi-stakeholder consultations and meetings have been convened before and during the execution of the project. In particular, community forums have been developed with an emphasis on encouraging the local community, especially women, to take part in the decision-making process.
Broad stakeholder involvement has been part and parcel of the development of the project. Regular consultations with the government, civic organisations and the community have taken place throughout the project phases. The local NGOs have overseen the smooth implementation of the project, while the community donated the school buildings. The government has further contributed by registering the local schools as part of the formal education framework and taking responsibility for routine monitoring of the schools.
While critical to the success of the project, the imperative to involve the community and other stakeholders has also provided a number of challenges. For instance, although the community development team has a set of criteria to select NGOs to engage in partnership, having as many as seven submitting proposals made for a complex process. Then, during the collaboration process with the selected NGOs and all the stakeholder groups, it was a matter of overcoming diverse interests and agendas in order to gain consensus.
A further challenge was to create awareness in the community that the people need to manage their own development and, importantly, to mobilise them into actively taking responsibility. Part of this involved bringing about an attitudinal change in order to allow the young local girls to have an opportunity to attend school. The aim was to achieve change while respecting and working within the cultural norms and traditions of the area.
These efforts have been worthwhile, and the benefits are now being realised. The project has provided education opportunities for the children, especially girls. Through interactive learning, the children are learning about issues related to literacy, health, hygiene and basic human rights.
The schoolteachers have benefited from their training and feel confident in their abilities to teach the children. They realise their roles and responsibilities and are actively involved in the decision-making process. Through their jobs, the women teachers have gained economic independence and can adequately support their families.
The parents too have been empowered. By involving the parents, especially the mothers, in the management of school issues, they now feel more confident about making an effective contribution to the decision-making process in matters affecting their lives.
The involvement of the parents, other members of the community, the government and NGOs is seen as a prerequisite to achieving sustainability of the project by instilling a sense of ownership and the motivation to take responsibility for maintaining the education program.
| Key achievements | |
|---|---|
| Schools operational | 5 |
| Teachers employed and trained | 13 |
| Children enrolled | 477 |
| Villages benefiting from the schools | 60 |
| Partner NGOs engaged | 2 |
| Community-based organisations formed | 5 |
| School management committees formed | 5 |
| People directly involved in the project | 23 |
