Pathways to bringing dreams to reality

Islamabad : Hadiqa Babar used to lament the lack of access to decent earning opportunities in her area while pursuing her dreams to achieve higher education simultaneously. The skill development opportunity, however, proved to be a timely intervention for her by reviving her hopes for a better future.

The 20-year-old BS student is now able to run a small-time beauty parlour at her home in the Muslim Bagh town of Killa Saifullah district in Balochistan province. She attributes this initiative to the training she received on her doorstep by the financial grant provided by the Citi Foundation to the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund through its implementing partner, Balochistan Rural Support Programme.

“I always wanted to do something in life for myself and the family. Starting my work as a beautician in the area is not only helping earn something to contribute to family expense but also to provide affordable services to women and girls from my locality. Earlier, I did not have access to any training courses and professional guidance in my area. Recently, I learned about this [PPAF-BRSP] youth development programme being held in my locality and was quick to take up the makeup and beauty course, which helped me live out one of my dreams,” she said.

The young woman’s initiative inspired many of her peers, mostly from poor families, to follow suit. Their new source of livelihood is helping the family improve their standard of living.

The two months long training programme was held in the underdeveloped Killa Saifullah and Ziarat districts in southwest Balochistan province under the Revitalising Youth Enterprise project with an aim to equip the youth with necessary technical skills in order to help them gain employment and break the cycle of poverty.

A total of 300 youth, including 150 men and 150 women, underwent training in demand-driven marketable skills.

According to Tahir Malik, general manager at the PPAF, 90% of the trainees developed links and expanded their professional network, while 50 per cent of the trainees demonstrated enhanced competencies.

He said the initiative funded by the Citi Foundation was carried out with the help of a local partner, BRSP, after a market situation analysis, which identified the skills the local youth needed to acquire to develop or improve their chances of employability.

“The market analysis showed clothes designing and making, beauty care, mobile phone repair, and domestic cooking as the sought-after trades in the specific locality and the training programme received an overwhelming response from all sections of the youth, who couldn’t enrol themselves in schools or dropped out due to poverty but wanted to formally take up the profession of choice to make a decent living.”

He said the project had a smooth sailing and the intervention had started to have a positive influence on the youth from those remote areas of Balochistan.

“Though Balochistan has scattered population and low literacy rate, we didn’t face any challenges as such because first, we have been working in the province for many years, second, we penetrate there through local communities and partners, and third, we employ inclusive models,” he said.

The PPAF representative said the youth, who were trained on domestic cooking and finishing by the Hashoo Foundation Karachi, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Technical Training Centre Quetta, and destination educational and development society experts and by the practical experience, opened eateries in own areas and even in Karachi.

He said the autonomous not-for-profit organisation, which had begun operations in the country in 2000, worked across 130 districts with 130 partner organisations for poverty alleviation.