Current Affairs at Compassionate Schools in Badin
Information is a precious commodity in a world where the general public do not always have all the time in the world, nor the clarity that they deserve. Charter for Compassion Pakistan wants students at Compassionate Schools at Badin to be able to thrive in democratic spaces where they can study a wide range of topics and worldviews and where they also have access to frequent coverage on current affairs. This does not mean that those students have to neglect their own values but we feel that it would be unfair of us to deprive them of this clarity.
Our main focus currently is for primary school pupils at Compassionate Schools in Badin to go on and attempt to ace their CSS and PCS exams with the knowledge that they will have acquired during their time with us. Ideally the students will also analyze the contexts of relevant news stories and familiarize themselves with the author’s writing style and political stance. Reading regularly in English and Urdu with all that in mind is undoubtedly the key to success for students who aren’t able to enjoy the perks of being from a privileged background such as having financial backing for tuitions and adequate learning materials.
Exposure to balanced reporting is so crucial and means that we can reduce ideological polarization while allowing students to have more exposure to the consensus on various topics along with a wide range of various people’s grievances and concerns. It is hugely underestimated how much this awareness can improve a young person’s insight. Newspapers, magazines and articles on social media are ideal for readers who want to avoid longer texts and absorb bite-sized pieces of information without losing interest.
A general public without sufficient general knowledge and academic knowledge is completely unacceptable. Hence why CfC Pakistan is such a strong advocate for measures to be put in place to allow students to be able to keep up to date with current affairs freely and browse through articles and shorter texts on a regular basis. The ability to evaluate current affairs, using a more balanced approach can also prompt young underprivileged Pakistanis to make more informed decisions, approach women and minorities with a more open mind and give themselves the best chance of succeeding after they graduate.
Art Competition and Workshop held at CfC Pakistan’s Compassionate Schools in Khairpur
The theme for this Art Competition was Diversity, Peace and Tolerance.
As Pakistanis we know that our creativity is our strength. We also know that if we remain cohesive as a society we will continue to build on very strong foundations. Pakistanis from all backgrounds are starting to look forward in an attempt to put their differences aside and work with what Pakistan already has, which is a bit of everything, including uniqueness and charm in abundance. Nostalgia of Pakistan’s heyday is creeping back but can Pakistanis work in tandem towards achieving stability and social cohesion without neglecting the country’s diversity?
Charter for Compassion Pakistan is already on board with the idea that sky is the limit, if Pakistanis go about putting their heads together and working on respecting others. CfC-Pakistan recently held an art workshop at Compassionate Schools of Khairpur from the 5th to the 8th of August, which focused on diversity, peace and tolerance. Many of us subconsciously adopt these principles already. It is nevertheless still vital to keep reemphasizing them.
Pakistan happens to be a haven for Startups and to build from the bottom we need to provide talented students with a functioning support system along with tailored mentorship and methods of motivation. Just as we tailor our behavior to various individuals, art workshops like ours seek to bring out the neglected talents of our students by targeting their creativity. We believe that practicing art in the context of peace, tolerance and diversity can captivate young individuals and help them to visualize the challenges facing our society, while they go about their business in an encouraging environment. Furthermore, promoting concepts like diversity, peace and tolerance is not only good for domestic relations, we want to encourage young Pakistanis to eventually embrace other countries in the region as well.
We can gentrify cities like Karachi. We can clean up our streets by hiring rubbish collectors while making littering a criminal offence. We can make our culinary spaces and public restrooms more hygienic. We can tax our elite more heavily. We can develop a system of tipping where we give away all of our 100 Rupee notes as a rule. We can even start to invest more money locally and look after our own citizens as well as our military who so bravely paved the way for this national revival but unless we enlighten, educate, emancipate and empower our future generations, there will be no incentive to see through visions like the ones above.
Charter for Compassion Pakistan is committed to helping harness innovation and creativity like the kind that we had the pleasure of witnessing during our art competition. Rewarding creative brilliance can only further encourage our future artists, writers and film producers to conjure up exceptional creative work and use their ingenuity to depict various narratives like many successful Pakistani artists have previously done. CfC Pakistan hopes that these sorts of opportunities will inspire young Pakistanis to express themselves more, as this freedom of expression will allow our society to continue to thrive culturally.
Pakistan desperately needs positive representatives who represent our culture in a forward-thinking way but initiatives like Charter for Compassion cannot do this on their own. We want open-minded yet discerning and patriotic Pakistanis from all walks of life to be an example to the rest of the world. Pakistanis are known for their resilience and raw talent, despite not having all the funds in the world. By hosting art workshops, CfC urges everyone to get on board so that we can give all Pakistanis the opportunity to take the world by storm and do themselves and their country proud.
Mumkin - Women Empowerment
At Charter for Compassion Pakistan we hold the concept of female empowerment very close to our hearts. We have program such as “Mumkin - Women Empowerment” which are committed to catering to the educational and professional needs of disadvantaged females through training and mentoring. Our focus lies on raising awareness and reducing the limitations and societal pressures faced by our female clients. We are not only an organization of empowered females and gender conscious males ourselves, we also completely acknowledge the marginalization that women in our society have to deal with and we want to change that.
We not only want to see women from less privileged backgrounds more present in our society, we also want to defy traditional gender roles. It is a tragedy when we come across capable females who are confined to their homes and do not have the same opportunities to be able to succeed as their privileged and/or male counterparts. Initiatives like Mumkin are Charter for Compassion Pakistan’s answer to the marginalization of disadvantaged females in our society.
We are fully aware that women differ to men and being a women in our society comes with certain expectations which can hinder the independence and social mobility of our clients. We hold the belief that if you can do the job just as well or even better than your male counterpart, you should not be discriminated against or brushed aside. CfC Pakistan has created inclusive, female-friendly spaces like the one at the Mumkin Centres to make sure that the talents of disadvantaged females do not go to waste.
We pride ourselves on being grounded and realistic but actually our work is pioneering in the sense that we are reaching out to neglected women in deprived areas of Sindh who would otherwise get left behind without us. Mumkin itself means ‘possible’ and so the whole project runs on the notion that anything can be achieved regardless of one’s gender. It is imperative that our female clients feel the same sense of purpose throughout their time with us.
Women in our society are also more susceptible to control and harassment than men. Therefore we don’t want to see women from disadvantaged backgrounds stranded without anyone to turn to. Mumkin’s beautician, dressmaking and computer training courses seek to break the shackles and provide women with training and career opportunities so that they feel emancipated and empowered. As a rule, we feel that it is vital for female voices to be heard, respected and taken seriously. Charter for Compassion Pakistan believes that a society, rife with sexism, is one that is also ethically defunct.
Therefore we would love to see others take a leaf out of our book and apply our core values to their own projects and personal lives. Compassion and empathy tend to never goes amiss but we find that approaching women with both of those principles in mind can make a huge difference, as empowering women can go a very long way. As the saying goes, if you empower a woman, you empower an entire nation. Our thinking is no different.