Tending cattle by the age of 5, Anita never dreamed she would get an education. Now she is a qualified teacher inspiring students at the very Developments in Literacy (DIL) school she attended.
When a DIL school opened in her village, Anita received a scholarship allowing her to go. Year after year she was top of her class while working after school to help support her family.
She realised her goal of becoming a teacher and last year joined the teaching staff at DIL’s Syed Waryal Shah School. Now Anita is encouraging her students to work hard, achieve good grades and accomplish their goals.
“It’s women like Anita who are the true catalysts for grassroots social change in Pakistan,” says a DIL representative.
DIL is dedicated to providing quality education to disadvantaged children, especially girls, by establishing and operating schools in underdeveloped regions of Pakistan. Trust funding improves the quality of education at DIL’s school with effective training for over 600 rural teachers.
Ataullah’s family was already struggling before the floods wiped out their village. Of his six children, three daughters are disabled and were going blind until they were discovered by a LRBT medical team.
“I have six children – four daughters and two sons out of which my three daughters are completely handicapped,” said Ataullah, a labourer earning the equivalent of £35 a month. “They were in good health until the age of 5 and then their hands and feet started to cripple and now they’re unable to do anything,” he said. “We also noticed whiteness in their eyes and they could barely see anything.”Medical help was out of the question. “I have always had so little money in my pocket that I could not think beyond providing food for my family,” Ataullah said.
The recent floods forced the family to flee their village in Sind for a relief camp where a LRBT medical team found them. Attaullah’s daughters were diagnosed with developmental cataracts and transported to Karachi hospital for surgery. It was too late to completely restore their vision, but their eyesight is now much improved.
“You cannot imagine what this surgery means to us. My daughters will be able to feed themselves and will be much less frustrated because they can see around them,” said Ataullah. “LRBT has turned out to be a blessing for poor people like myself and I have no words to express my feelings for the joy they have brought to my daughters’ lives.”