Fishing village children catch on at summer camp

KARACHI: Watching grownup girls singing nursery rhymes is nothing but heart wrenching.

“But they aren’t self conscious at all,” says Sumaira, a finance and research manager, who attended an open house for three schools in fishing village Ibrahim Hyderi on Saturday.

The open house is part of a 12-day summer camp organised by the Indus Resource Centre that has adopted the government schools - Ali Brohi School, Usman Dawood School and Ali Muhammad Khaskheli School - at Rehri Goth and Ibrahim Hyderi. According to the agreement, both the government and NGO will work together on the project.

The Indus Resource Centre hired teachers and bought school material and furniture. The schools desperately needed them. One of them didn’t even have teachers. The summer camp was organised to assess how the community would react.

According to IRC’s Sadiqa Salahuddin the response was “overwhelming”. Students from the fishing villages flocked to the school as soon as they heard about the summer camp. The NGO had estimated there would be one teacher for 35 students but so many of them turned up that it swelled to one to 65.

The students’ excitement became immediately evident to the organisers by the sheer effort the children made. Young girls came heavily made up and decked out with heavy jewellery. The boys put on their cleanest shalwar kameez, which was a feat as the fishing villages do not always have regular access to clean water at home.

One of the young boys was Jamal, who stood in the corner of a classroom and tried to get the attention of visitors: “S-E-V-E-N!” he screamed. Indeed, going to school was one of the most exciting things Jamal has done in a long time because he needs to work for a living at a bakery. “I enjoy school,” he stressed when asked about how the day was going.

A large number of parents also turned up to watch their children perform. Peerani sends her two girls to the Usman Dawood School. Her husband left her and she sells daily-use items to support the small family. “Even if I have to die, I will educate my daughters. I want them to stand on their own feet,” she said.

The parents may not have been formally schooled but this has not diminished their sense of the importance of education for their children. “When my daughter grows up, she will become a teacher,” said Abdul Aziz, a peon, whose daughter studies at the Ali Brohi School. “If our children study, our country will prosper.”

Older women accompanied some of the young girls. “I want to be a doctor someday,” whispered 16-year old Parveen before laughing and shyly turning away.

Unlike many other efforts, the IRC schools are co-educational. “It was not a problem for the community at the primary level, but at the secondary level they asked for boys and girls to be seated separately,” said Salahuddin.

The IRC gets most of its funds from the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund, philanthropists and overseas Pakistanis. “The community is expecting too much from us,” admitted Salahuddin. “I am scared because we might not have enough funds to give them uniforms, books and school equipment.”

The IRC is also worried that while the initial response has been phenomenal, the children may drop out as the fishing season approaches because they work with their families.

The schools realise that their responsibility is immense. And it doesn’t just involve teaching students to read and write. Shabana, a teacher at the Usman Daood School, had to teach the students have to brush their teeth and wear clean clothes for their first day at school.

Published in The Express Triune, July 25^th, 2010.