Japan approves grants for social development projects in Pakistan

Islamabad: As a part of efforts to promote human security, the Government of Japan has decided to provide financial assistance of $236,230 for four social development projects in education and rural electrification in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces. The grants will be provided to four national NGOs, Learning Awareness & Motivation Programme (LAMP) in Khyber district, Friends Welfare Association (FWA) in Torghar district, Hana Development Council (HDC) in Mandi Bahauddin district and Actions for Human Advancement (AHAT) in Kasur district.

Human security is an idea, focusing on individual member of community, to promote to strengthen the community and independence of each person with protection and capability development in order to achieve rich potential of each member of community.

There are variety of areas that Japanese Government has been extending assistance with this idea in Pakistan and education is one of the very focused area as education is the equal basic right for everybody to enjoy, will be a tool for everybody to develop its own potential, and naturally resulting in the accomplishment of sustainable development of each nation.

The grant of $73,514 provided to LAMP will be utilised for the expansion of a primary section of the school for boys and girls in a village of Khyber district to overcome the problem of overcrowded classrooms. Currently, the school having classes from Play Group till Grade 10 has over 950 enrollment, and over 300 students sit outside their classrooms in open space because of the limited sitting capacity in the classrooms. Earlier, the school was expanded up to grade 10 with the financial assistance provided by the Government of Japan in financial year 2011 and 2015.

The grant of $64,868 provided to Friends Welfare Association will be spent for the construction of a building for primary and middle school in Torghar district of KPK. At present over 130 girls and boys use the premises of a local mosque for their classes because of the lack of availability of school building. The new school building will also be used in second shift for middle school classes for girls specifically. The project is expected to provide a conducive environment to the students for study.

The grant of $42,818 provided to Hana Development Council will assist in installation of electricity scheme for seven communities of Mandi Bahauddin district in Punjab province where there is no facility of electricity at present. Together with a local power generation company and participation of local communities, the project will install electricity equipment – transformers, polls, electricity lines and meters and connect it with the national grid. The scheme is expected to benefit over 1650 local community members.

AHAT will spend the grant of $55,030 for the expansion of a public elementary school in Kasur district. Currently, the NGO runs the school in a rented building, which has poor infrastructure and limited capacity in the classrooms. With the construction of new school building, children will be able to continue their education in conducive environment. Over 700 boys and girls will get benefit from this project.

Ambassador of Japan to Pakistan, H.E. MATSUDA Kuninori, congratulated the recipient organizations for winning the Japanese grant for their respective development projects. He expressed his hope that these projects will help girls and boys to have an easy access to their basic right of education and help local communities get maximum benefit from the rural electrification project.