Pakistan Welfare Forum (PWF) — a humanitarian initiative to promote education — has announced setting up of a vocational centre to train community children who are unable to get formal schooling.
To be setup inside the Pakistan Education Centre (PEC) premises in Doha, the new facility would impart various vocational trainings to both male and female students who are dropped out of schools.
The purpose, a statement by the PWF said, was to make these boys and girls useful and productive citizens, rather than a burden on the society and on the already-strained families.
The PWF, however, didn’t mention when exactly the forum would be functional.
The forum that works under the supervision of the Pakistani embassy in Qatar is already running an ‘Education for All’ project since May this year, under which children of underprivileged families are educated.
Ahmad Hussain, vice-president, PWF, and in-charge of the project, recently visited the students being sponsored by the forum.
He said that as an extension of humanitarian and welfare programmes for the needy segments of the Pakistani community, the PWF has taken up the challenge of combating illiteracy by launching the project.
The educational programme consists of a prep school in the morning for children of ages four-to-nine and an adult education programme in the evening.
The morning school prepares children for mainstream education in a regular school.
A class of 26 children has already been transferred to a regular KG class at Pakistan Education Centre (PEC).
Currently, around 200 male and female students are enrolled in the programme of PWF and receiving free education and transport from home to school and back.
It is worth mentioning that three special classrooms have been constructed within the PEC premises to run the programme for which donations have been given by four founder members.
Founder member Mohamed Idrees Anwar, who is also CEO of Al-Khayarin Group of Companies, handed over gifts to all the students.
He also lauded the initiative and progress on the project, which is in line with the priority areas of the government of Qatar.
“It is a moral obligation of every member of Pakistani community to contribute towards educating children from the deprived segment of the community, who otherwise will miss education forever,” he said.