I have a right for education too

Hi everyone, I am Shagufta, working with REEDS Pakistan as a Gender Expert. This is only one story from my field area of South Punjab, Rahimyarkhan, where strict cultural norms hardly allow the girls' education. There are many other stories as well on which I have worked under REEDS Pakistan in one project, we have made gender committees for female farmers and workers facilitation at villages level, in case they have any problems while household or farm work. I lead groups of males and females from the office side, and we make sure a safe workplace environment for females and children.

In a few areas, there is no issue even if the teacher is male, but we have a different cultural context in every area. We train women for leadership roles and livelihood sustainability under our projects. We first provide awareness, then we provide training for capacity building at the village level formed groups. We call them Self-Help Groups. We use pictorials to teach women because many of these are illiterate, so they find it easy when we teach them by using pictorials. For agricultural practices, we make them visit demo plots, because we work with them on climate change practices as well. These are also for gender mainstreaming purposes. We have experienced a lot of change among female village community due to these groups. After getting trained in groups, these women were empowered a lot at the village level. They speak in public, they run small businesses, they work on climate change practices, and they work on female issues under gender committees. These groups are formed under the REEDS Pakistan projects for gender mainstreaming.

Thanks to God being a part of our REEDS gender committee, our field facilitator, Miss Samiya, found one gender issue in the village area, due to only male teacher facilities, people were unable to send small girls to school.

So, coming back to our story on girls' rights and gender equality. Of course, it happened after bringing that small social change in the community when they understood the importance of education for girls as an equal opportunity as for boys.

There, with the help of REEDS' gender committee, women's support, I visited the village and found one educated girl, and convinced her that she can facilitate teaching so all girls can also join school. Finaly she agreed and joined teaching. Now, 25 small girls of aged 5 year to 10 years have been enrolled and will be getting educated. A great step for that small unheard village where the small, shiny eyes of little girls were watching the boys going to school. Now, eyes twinkle more with hope for a better future, full of life opportunities. Their picture is also shared with a title; you can see the hope in their eyes.

This may be a small footprint, but I believe that now we have initiated a trend for supporting girls towards education in that faraway rural village. The next generations will be getting an advantage from it, so this step is towards sustainability as well. Village people are grateful to REEDS Pakistan for taking this step towards gender equality and inclusion.

My message

As a REEDS Pakistan Gender expert, my message here is to never stop making efforts, even if they are small. No matter wherever we are, our cause is the same to empower women like us who do not find equity anywhere. One small stone can break the silence in still water. Another message is that you all are more than welcome if at any time you wish to visit our community and us, our organisation will welcome you wholeheartedly to see the on-ground differences in the community because seeing is believing. I am sharing my email ID as well at the end of this page if any of you want to contact me to know more about us.

shaguftakhokhar91@gmail.com

03332177930

gender expert REEDS Pakistan

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