Delve deep into the origins, visions, and facilities of our educational, healthcare, and vocational initiatives in Murree and Cholistan.
Inspiration: Introduced to the mountain village of Numb Bhera Mall by our tailor, Master Rafiq, we discovered an amazing community of ancestral tailors whose livelihoods were severely restricted due to limited market access, lack of industrial equipment, and under-utilized workforce potential. To empower these families, we established a 6,000 sq ft state-of-the-art Vocational Center and adjacent family home to oversee operations.
Vision: To create a sustainable business ecosystem for the youth of District Murree, providing certified training in dressmaking and Information Technology (IT) in a well-equipped, non-profit training center accredited by NAVTTC.
Inspiration: Smaller Cholistan is an extremely remote desert area where families previously had to travel up to 50–100 km on motorbikes under scorching temperatures of 44°C for basic medical emergencies. Tragically, delayed help led to preventable limbs loss and deaths (such as a 7-year old girl whose finger was chopped, a mother in labor rushed on a motorcycle, and a cardiac arrest casualty). Inspired to act, the Trustees Mutationed 4 kanals of farmland to build a permanent savior in the desert.
Introduction: Supported heavily by seed donations from family, friends, and the Pakistan Army, the clinic was completed in February 2024. Today, Rohi Markaz Sehat and its ambulance serve a settled and farming population of over 6,000 underprivileged residents. A donor has donated hospital furniture and other donors regularly contribute towards the expenses of medicines every two months. A duo of schoolfriends have donated a 10 kw solar system which now caters to the needs of the BHU, the mosque and the school having adjacent premises.
Vision & Operations: In consultation with the Punjab Health Department and WHO, we run daily clinics treating 60-70 patients. Facilities include a medical inspection room, dispensing pharmacy counter, 4-bed observation ward, labor room, scrub room, and staff quarters. A permanent medical officer (ex-Army OT Assistant) is hired, and we are working to secure LHVs and MBBS doctors.
Inspiration: Setting up a farm in Cholistan in 2018 exposed us to the absolute neglect of local kids' education. We started an informal class for 15 children of our farmhands, hiring an FA-passed spouse of a worker as the first teacher. Her salary was pledged from our 90-year old mother's subsistence pension. The school expanded rapidly.
The "O for Ox" Anecdote: During an evaluation by Deputy Education Officer Naseer Sial, a 4-year old student was asked to name a word starting with 'O'. The boy confidently answered: "O for Ox, Ox meaning 'byel'" and pointed directly to a bull in our cattle shed. Deeply moved, the officials embraced him and donated to our school.
Ahmad Elementary School: This school is named ‘Ahmad Elementary School’ with over 320 children currently enrolled. 4 kanals of land have been donated to Punjab Education Department. A 9-room school building has been constructed with the help of donations from individual philanthropists and Pak Army. It’s housing the school children in a non-formal education system catering to the peculiar, infrequent and inadequate schooling background of the children. There are many talented children in the school who have picked up very well beginning from the scratch, while there are others who are catching up on their lost years of education. Punjab Literacy Department of Bahawalpur headed by Dr Zahid Khan provides a minimum salary of Rs 20,000/ for the seven teachers employed now, which is modestly supplemented by the Numb Rohi Welfare Society. The finishing work of construction is under progress now supported by donations. With the pace of enrolment in the past 4 years, we anticipate that another storey would have to be added to this building to fulfill the expanding number of students in future.
