Limited educational opportunities for Karachi’s underprivileged continue to disappear

Decrepit structures, broken-down walls, ever-growing mounds of garbage and drug dens are all that are left of the Norwegian Educational Complex (NEC) in Orangi Town’s Sector-16. The rusty hoops of the basketball court on campus tell their own tale.

By Arshad Yousafzai
December 17, 2018

Video: Faraz Maqbool
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A truck drives in through a gap in the crumbling boundary wall, then dumps garbage in what used to be a playground. Around a dozen children rummage through the rubbish heap and stuff recyclable items into their straw bags as a second truck pulls up.

Nearby, barely concealed behind an overgrown bush, a group of drug addicts huddles together with a tinfoil between them. Stray dogs jump in and out of the broken windows of a building in the distance.

Decrepit structures, broken-down walls, ever-growing mounds of garbage and drug dens are all that are left of the Norwegian Educational Complex (NEC) in Orangi Town’s Sector-16. The rusty hoops of the basketball court on campus tell their own tale.

In the 1970s, thousands studied and taught at the different centres of the NEC, which included a primary school, a high school, a vocational centre and a sports complex.

Besides Orangi Town, schools were also established in Korangi and Mehmoodabad by the Norwegian Youth Action Committee (NYAC), a Norway-based charity that worked for education in Asia and Africa.

Blanket terms

Orangi Town residents remember the NEC as the German School. “Some foreign-sponsored schools in the old city area were known as German schools. Maybe the Orangi Town residents named the NEC after those institutes,” said a 55-year-old local named Muhammad Anwar.

In the late 1990s, the Sindh government had started a public transport service from Orangi Town to the Merewether Clock Tower. It was popularly known as the German Bus Service, even though it had no connection with Germany, yet its last stop was the German School.

Another resident, Sadiq-ul-Islam, said: “People have their own terms to name things. They call the Good Samaritan Hospital the Korean Hospital. Interestingly, the hospital was built by the same Norwegian organisation in the late 1980s, and it’s still serving the community.”

The origin

According to a magazine published on the NYAC’s silver jubilee, the committee’s then director Rev Henry Dahl Johannessen asked then Bishop of Karachi Rev Chandu Ray in 1964 to start a programme for the poor and illiterate children of the city’s slum areas.

The Medical, Educational & Vocational Endowment Trust’s (Mevet) then secretary Sadiq Wahabuddin wrote that the bishop entrusted him with the task, so he formed a committee of like-minded people under the senior priest’s supervision. Initially, they tried to meet the medical, educational and food requirements of the children in Mehmoodabad and Korangi.

On to Orangi

After the fall of Dhaka, Rev Johannessen requested the local committee to help the refugees settle in Orangi Town. “We started feeding and schooling programmes in the huts and open spaces in the locality,” wrote Wahabuddin.

Orangi was a deserted area that lacked fresh food, potable water and a healthy environment. The educational programme in the town reached its zenith under then Mevet chairman Zahiruddin as they tried to serve more and more children.

Then NYAC chairman Kristen Ulstein wrote in the magazine that impressive results were achieved with the limited resources available, and that the NYAC and other Norwegian sponsors felt their funds were handled responsibly and transformed into a meaningful programme.

Gone from history

In 1987, Christian philanthropists registered Mevet to carry forward the work of the NYAC’s institutes. Zahiruddin and Wahabuddin were its first chairman and secretary. But all of Mevet’s work has vanished from Karachi’s history.

“We don’t know who owned and managed the German School, but thousands of children acquired education there,” said 60-year-old Nazim Ahmed, an NEC alumnus. “It was a gift from God to the people of Orangi.”

He said Norwegian delegates used to visit the NEC during the annual functions, including sports galas. Back then, its sports complex was the best in the entire city, as boys and girls got the best coaching there for competing in national and international competitions, he added.

“In the early 1980s, around 5,000 children were enrolled in the NEC,” said another alumnus, Muhammad Anwar, adding that children from other parts of the city also sought admission there. “Unfortunately, when ethnic violence hit Karachi, especially Orangi Town, the NEC was closed down.”

Encroachment

“Despite their immense contribution to the education sector, Christian philanthropists have remained unappreciated,” claimed Shabbir Shafqat, chairman of the National Christian Party. He said that after the Mevet chairman’s death, the trust’s secretary moved overseas, resulting in a lack of ownership.

He added that hundreds of residential and commercial plots were leased out illegally, and that the Sindh government had acquired some of the NEC’s land to construct a college, but the plot was turned into a marriage lawn.

Other NYAC complexes

The NEC in Mehmoodabad that comprised a vocational centre, a primary school each for boys and girls, and secondary schools is also ramshackle. A couple of decades ago the education department had adopted the complex, but it has not been renovated since then.

Even though some people from the Christian community came forward to claim the complex as their property, the education department did not hand it over to them.

The NEC in Orangi Town’s Sector-14 does not look any better. Due to the negligence of the trustees and the relevant authorities, the school has remained closed for the past decade. As for the complex in Korangi, The News was unable to locate it, as none of the locals knew where it was.

Need for revival

Squatter settlements in Mehmoodabad, Orangi and Korangi need such institutes. They can still be revived if the trustees come forward and own them, so their ruined buildings can be restored.

“The Norwegian educational complexes were built on amenity plots,” said Orangi-based political activist Shakil Ahmed, “and, therefore, they should continue to be used for philanthropy.”

Orangi is the largest urban area of Karachi where thousands of children are out of schools. Most of the locals cannot afford to send their kids to private institutes. But if Mevet were to collaborate with other nonprofits to resume educational activities in these abandoned compounds, things can finally turn around.

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