Our work in Northern Pakistan has centered around Aga Khan schools in Sherqilla, Gahkuch, Ishkoman and Darkut. At each of these locations we have provided students with support in fees and in covering the costs of their boarding.
Supporting students in Sherqilla
In Sherqilla, we supported several students with their tuition for attending school and for the cost of their board at local boarding houses. In addition, we provided computers to the boarding houses so that the students would have access to it outside of school. We loaded portable Khan Academy, called Khan Academy Lite, on the school’s computer to allow students to have access to this educational resource.
The girl’s dormitories in Sherqilla were not well lit for studying at night and we provided funding for additional wiring and lighting of the rooms to make studying at night possible.
Special Classes in Darkut to study for entrance exams
Due to the remoteness of Darkut (the roads end here and the Wakhan corridor of Afghanistan is less than ten kilometers away), educational resources had not yet reached them in a meaningful way. One elementary school was available for children. However, due to lack of teachers willing to go to Darkut, the level of teaching at Darkut was not high enough to allow students to do well. As such, they seldom qualified to get admitted into the Aga Khan Schools in larger towns for their secondary education. We established a summer session in Darkut with teachers paid by the Foundation to work with students to get them qualified for the entrance exams. We had limited success with this but our work got the attention of AKES-P and a full fledged Secondary School was built in Darkut to serve the people of this community.
Sponsoring a Child
This is a new program that we are spearheading in a few villages in Northern Pakistan. See our Sponsoring a Child page for information about this exciting pilot project.