They are “ordinary people” with no claim to fame. But in their own way they are making a useful contribution to society and rebuilding their own lives. This is the story of Parvin who attended primary school for only three years before she was married at the age of twelve. Denied her rights to education, healthcare and a decent life, Parvin was doomed to be one of the oppressed class who could not hope to live with dignity. But she is a woman of courage and decided to act. She went back to schooling herself and also opened a home school where she teaches children from her neighbourhood.
Daily Archives: October 22, 2010
A Beacon of Hope from within Pakistan: A Home-school in Karachi
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: The WIP
Floods in 2010. Earthquake in 2005. Pakistan has been severely battered by the elements. Thousands have died and millions have become internally displaced. But even without Nature’s unkind revenge, life in Pakistan is not easy for the teeming masses who toil hard to feed themselves and their families. Poverty is their biggest adversary, and according to one estimate over 40 percent of the country’s 180 million live below the poverty line.
Yet in this gloom there are beacons of hope – many of them women – showing the way to people who are on the verge of despair. Parveen Lateef, age 40, is one of them. Her story reads like fiction. But fortunately, it is a true account of a woman’s struggle to change her life and that of her children.
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