Sania Sufi & Imtiaz Dossa: The Citizens Foundation

Today’s speaker was Sania Sufi of The Citizens Foundation (UK). She was accompanied by the charity’s founder, Imttiaz Dossa, who established it to support The Citizens Foundation (“TCF”) in Pakistan.

TCF was founded in the 1990s by four businessmen and an architect to help educate children in poor communities. Pakistan has 22.8 Million children not at school, placing it second only to Nigeria. 56% of the children in Grade 5 (Year 6 in the UK) have not reached the reading level expected of those in Grade 2 (Year 2).

From small beginnings TCF now has 1,833 schools across all areas in Pakistan. These were all purpose-built and are usually situated in the hearts of their communities. Sania described them as all very beautiful and showed us photographs of a few of them. They currently have 280,000 students. TCF made a conscious decision to have only female teachers, making TCF the largest employer of women in Pakistan outside the private sector. The all-female teaching staff has encouraged girls to go to the schools; around 48% of the students are female. The teachers are always drawn from the local community and a number were previously students at TCF schools themselves.

TCF has an Adult Literacy Programme aimed primarily at young women and young mothers. The Programme, which currently has 160,000 adults enrolled, gives the young mothers the education they need to help their children with their homework.

TCF also provides clean water for its schools and communities, brevetting over 20,000 people.

So far 53,000 students have been through the TCF school system. Of those over the age of 21, 71% are working and a further 15% are still studying. Sania told us the stories of three former students who had grown up in impoverished areas but who, with the start provided by TCF, had obtained scholarships enabling them to study for academic or professional qualifications and had been able to take up offers to study overseas.

A donation of £9 per month will enable TCF to educate one student for a year.