Free education: School for underprivileged gets own building

Japanese government, trust members contribute generously to the project

ISLAMABAD: Fifteen years ago a group of thoughtful citizens’ dreamt of a school for the underprivileged community of a village on the outskirts of Islamabad. The quest for knowledge and persistence of children willing to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps who refused to give up on getting a quality education, bore fruit when newly-constructed building of House of Light School was inaugurated on Thursday.

The new building spreads over an area of 18 kanal in Pind Begwal about 25km from Aabpara.  Previously it was operating from a small rented house.

Japanese Ambassador Hiroshi Inomata, who inaugurated the building, said that he was pleasantly surprised to see completion of the project in such a short period of time.

A partial funding of $107,000 for the project was given by the Japanese embassy in February last year.

Inomata said he was thrilled to see children performing Japanese dances with ease.

The school currently accommodates 225 students studying up to grade nine.

It provides free education to the underprivileged children of the area.

The story began in early 2000, when Raja Qaiser Ghaffar, a resident of Pind Begwal dreamt of opening a school for the underprivileged.

He was of the view that even if one child belonging to a poor family could receive a good education, he would change the destiny of that family.

The idea of establishing the school was conceived in Spain back in 2002. On his trip Ghaffar became friends with Arnim Shultz, a German-language professor at the Goethe Institute of Barcelona. The two friends discussed developing an educational project in Ghaffar’s village to provide free education, and named it House of Light School.

They succeeded in establishing Horizon International Trust (HIT) in 2005. Funds were collected from family and friends, and the school began functioning in 2006 with a batch of 25 children.

A trustee, Dr Arjumand Faisel, owner of Gallery6, suggested that the students contribute paintings that he could sell at his gallery to raise funds for building a classroom.

The response was unprecedented. Around 50 paintings were exhibited and sold in May 2012, and over Rs1 million were generated.

This response encouraged the board of trustees of the school to raise funds and get a building for the school constructed. Everyone involved in the project chipped in. Ghaffar donated 9,000 sq yards of land; Senator Mushahid Hussain arranged Rs4 million. Mohammad Saleem donated a plot to the trust that was sold for Rs2.2 million. A Pakistani based in the US donated Rs1 million.

The new building has 10 classrooms. Fourteen teachers are part of the school faculty.

All grade-V students from the school who recently appeared in the federal board exam passed with over 70 per cent marks. Three of the students who secured more than 95 per cent marks have been awarded government scholarships.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2015.