Renowned sports celebrity and charity leader Shahid Afridi has said that empowering daughters of deprived families with quality education is a prerequisite for Pakistan's development and progress.
Shahid Afridi, who is the chairman of the Shahid Afridi Foundation (SAF), stated this while speaking as the chief guest at a recent programme organised to kick off a joint campaign of the SAF and Green Crescent Trust (GCT) to enrol over 10,000 out-of-school children in Sindh. Eminent philanthropists, donors and members of Karachi's industrial and business fraternities attended the event and announced their overwhelming support for the SAF-GCT initiative to provide quality school education to children from deprived communities in the province.
Afridi urged philanthropists and business community members to extend wholehearted support to charitable efforts focused on educating girls from underprivileged backgrounds. He said Pakistan’s development and progress would remain incomplete if girls from underprivileged areas were left behind and not given access to quality school education. "These girls are future mothers whose proper education is necessary for the transformation of society, and I fully realise the importance of this cause because I have daughters," he said.
He mentioned that the SAF partnered with the GCT eight years ago to strengthen its charitable mission of delivering quality education to children in remote and marginalised communities. With more than 25 million children aged five to 16 out of school in Pakistan, urgent enrolment drives were essential and must be undertaken by charities active in the education sector, the sports celebrity said.
He appealed to non-governmental organisations and charitable groups to expand their operations to remote and underdeveloped regions of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where the security situation often posed challenges.
He thanked the Pakistan Army for providing the SAF with security support to carry out its welfare activities in these difficult areas. He added that the SAF would continue to introduce mobile health units for deprived communities in far-flung regions.
The SAF chairman informed the audience that the SAF would soon formally expand into the area of constructing housing facilities for homeless individuals in Sindh and Balochistan. He expressed his gratitude to philanthropists and donors for their outstanding support of the SAF’s work with underprivileged communities across the country.
GCT CEO Zahid Saeed told the audience that due to trusted partners and supporters like the SAF, the GCT had consistently pursued its mission over the past 31 years to deliver quality education to children from underserved areas in Sindh.
He added that with the continued support of generous donors and patrons, the GCT had established a network of 170 charitable schools in remote and deprived parts of Sindh, enrolling a total of 32,800 children from deserving families.
He added that the GCT aimed at enrolling 100,000 out-of-school children by expanding its school network to 250 institutions by 2030. He noted that last year, for the first time, the GCT extended its educational mission beyond Sindh by opening a school in Winder, Hub District, and it now planned to develop similar facilities for underprivileged communities in Balochistan and Punjab.
Renowned host and comedian Shafaat Ali hosted the fundraising segment of the event and praised the exceptional generosity displayed by businessmen and industrialists in supporting the SAF-GCT education campaign. He also thanked Junaid Naqi, president of the Korangi Association of Trade & Industry, and philanthropist M Farhan Hanif for their support in organising the event.