Aasthan Latif welfare society organization
Aasthan Latif Welfare Society (ALWS) is a locally registered
non-political, non-government, non-commercial/profit & non-religious
organization established on 2nd January 1989 in the small town
“Darro”, District Thatta, Sindh, Pakistan. It was
formed by a group of peoples led by Mr. Abdul Ghafoor Alasti,
who dedicated themselves for the promotion of basic education
for girls in the rural areas of Sindh. The Society is known
as “ALAST” in Pakistan. ALST is the abbreviation
of “Aasthan Latif Samaji Tanzeem” (The translation
of Aasthan Latif Welfare Society in Sindhi Language). ALAST
is also a word from spiritual meaning “Given to the Word
of GOD”.
The society started its campaign for literacy in 1989 and independently
worked for the promotion of education in the rural areas of
Sindh. The society had very humble beginnings - a thatched roof
office which turned into a coaching center for children who
had dropped out from schools because they could no longer afford
to attend. Thousands of children were thus coached, provided
schoolbooks, scholarships and uniforms, enabling them to rejoin
school. ALWS has successfully demonstrated its gender awareness
campaign for its girl's education program. ALWS is also pioneers
in Non-Formal Primary Education for rural girls in whole of
Pakistan and started its NFPE program in rural areas of Sindh
in the year 1991.
Apart from its girl's education programs, ALWS has been actively
involved in improving rural livelihood through its educational,
adult literacy, water & sanitation, environment awareness,
women development, mother & child health, capacity building
of community groups' projects & activities. Community Participation
is our main key of success in all our projects. So far more
than 50,000 rural community members have directly benefited
through our activities/ projects.
The agent of change must also know the socio-economic conditions,
cultural norms and environments of the respondents. The total
staff & personnel of ALWS are local and they know the cultural
norms of the targeted area and traditions. The ALWS's personnel
have the knowledge about the power relations and social stratification
in the communities of the target areas that have have been proved
through building a strong confidence among rural communities
of targetted areas about ALWS. The Confidence building of communities
is the most valuable asset of Aasthan Latif Welfare Society.
It has so far covered whole District Thatta and parts of District
Badin, District Jamshoro & District Tando Mohd Khan, Sindh,
Pakistan.
Objectives
- To raise consciousness and facilitate rural communities
in improving their social, economical, environmental and educational
conditions.
- To raise awareness among rural communities of Sindh, Pakistan
about the universal rights of children & women.
- To raise awareness among rural communities of Sindh, Pakistan
about the need and importance of female education, literacy
and development.
- To endeavor to increase literacy rates among rural girls
in Pakistan and promote basic education for them.
- To set up schools in the villages to make it possible for
more girls to get enrolled and get basic education in their
very village.
- To motivate rural communities to educate their girls and
assist them in establishing & running their own Community
Girls Schools.
- To provide basic literacy skills to illiterate young and
adults especially females in the rural areas of Sindh, Pakistan.
- To help rural communities in the formation of Village Development
Committees (VDC) and provide guidance & training to these
Committees on Participatory Planning and Management.
- To improve the social status and economic well-being of
the poorest especially women in the rural areas of Pakistan.
- To establish Women Development Centres in rural areas to
bring the rural women into the mainstream of development and
improve their economic status through skill development training
and income generation opportunities.
History
Mr. Abdul Ghafoor Memon known As Alasti, founder, Aasthan Latif
Welfare Society (ALWS) has only one dream in his life - to spread
light of education among rural girls of Sindh, Pakistan where
there are very little opportunities are available for girls
to get basic education in the rural areas of Sindh, Pakistan.
A dream of Alasti to educate rural girls came while translating
poetry of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, a renowned mystic poet of
Sindh, Pakistan. He believes in Shah Latif’s message,
so he spent seven years after his retirement form his services,
translating into English the works of his guiding saint. His
translation covers nearly 786 of Shah’s verses, which
makes his work the most voluminous of all English translation.
It all began in 1989, having just been through the translation
of Shah Latif’s poetry, his restless soul drove him to
doing ‘something’. This something turned out to
be the urge to wipe out the rampant female illiteracy in his
surroundings.
To spread the light, to educate: this became Alasti’s
overriding mission – a deep commitment he felt after fully
devoting seven years to translating Shah Latif’s poetry
into English verse. Alasti believes in educating girls –
for educating one girl’s means sowing the seeds of knowledge
for the entire family.
Alasti started work on his dream. He began in a very humble
way, by painting the streets of rural areas of Sindh with slogans
championing the cause of education for girls. He also used to
appeal through mega phone to peasants to send their daughters
into schools and tell them the importance of education not just
for boys, but also girls. He was then joined by some of his
friends who themselves felt the pain of illiteracy among rural
girls.
With the help of his friends, Alasti started work on his dream
and formed Aasthan Latif Welfare Society on 2nd January 1989
in the small town “Darro”, District Thatta, Sindh,
Pakistan, named after Sufi Poet "Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai"
with a major objective to educate rural girls. The tasks they
have jointly undertaken is an onerous one as the education of
girls are one of the lowest priorities. He began by painting
slogans on some walls, with the message; He began in a very
humble way, by painting the streets of Thatta with slogans championing
the cause of education for girls. He wrote and wrote and wrote
on wall after wall – writing on wall, “education
for all”, “let us educate”, “Educate
Girls”. Their main focus always remained on betterment
of girl’s education of rural areas and started their campaign
for literacy in 1989 and independently worked for the promotion
of education in the villages of the Thatta District.
They started buying school books which were handed to girls
from poor families. Then they tried to enroll them. But schools
for girls were few and far away. Before long, they realized
that what the girls really needed were more schools. Then they
went countryside to persuade parents and village elders to open
their villages to the concept and practice. Alasti was ridiculed
by everyone when he and his organization, ALWS, proposed the
idea of setting up a school where the girls would be educated.
There was strong resistance against any such idea in the wake
of realization that once educated, the girl would bring disgrace
to her family. Most parents perceive that the education of girls
has little or no value. In fact the investment in it is wasted
as they leave home after marriage. Also early marriage cuts
short a girl’s time in school and diminishes the value
of schooling to her parents. The girl’s unequal access
to education is closely linked with their work burden at homes.
The dependence of the family on the girl’s labor at home
and in the field results in their relatively low attendance
in the schools. The rural areas of Sindh, Pakistan a country
where illiteracy borders on 80% educating girls is not a palatable
concept for the majority of people. In rural Sindh, girls have
been known to be married to the Holy Quran, so as to keep outsiders
from sharing in the property of the family. More than on interests
join hands whenever some one proposes to make a breakthrough
in this direction. In such a bleak circumstances, the setting
of these schools was no less than a miracle given the social
conditions of the areas. But people gave way reluctantly when
they were told that the girls would learn to read the Holy Quran.
Strangely enough, the landlords of the area were unhappy at
these developments. They did not want the boys and girls in
the village to go to school. Because, once educated, these children
would be more difficult to control. They began to create trouble
in different ways but journey of light had started and no one
could stop it.
The society had very humble beginnings - a thatched roof office
which they turned into a coaching center for children who had
dropped out from schools because they could no longer afford
to attend. Hundreds of children were thus coached, provided
schoolbooks, scholarships and uniforms, enabling them to rejoin
school. Then they tried to enroll rural girls into schools,
but schools for girls were few and far away. Before long, they
realized that what the girls really needed were more schools.
The funds were not enough to cover all expenses, Alasti had
to raise funds. So he sold out all his agriculture lands and
spent his whole saving in promoting girl's education in the
rural areas of Sindh, Pakistan and started community girl's
schools. He also decided to sell copies of Shah Jo Risalo, Shah
Abdul Latif Bhitai’s book, which Alasti himself had translated
into English.
The NGO held the biggest rally of children in the history of
Sindh – named “Journey of Knowledge” in Thatta
on 25th Dec. 1990 – for education of children in Sindh
– led by the then Deputy Commissioner, Thatta. It was
the starting point of its crusade for literacy in rural Sindh.
Aasthan Latif Welfare Society played an important role in determining
and channelising the available community resources for girls'
education and initiated a non-formal primary education project
in 1990 to educate the girls living in the rural areas of Sindh.
The first school was opened in 1990 in a village called Dar
Maluk Shah.
In the brief span of 15 years, more 20000 rural girls (age group
4-12 years) have so far benefited through more than 500 formal
and non-formal schools for girls setup by AlWS in the rural
and remote areas of Thatta District and parts of district Badin,
Hyderabad, Tando Mohd Khan & Malir under a unique project
initiated and managed by ALWS. These schools could be found
in the most unlikely places: on the top of mound; on a riverbank
or near the seashore. The schools comprise of single room made
of straw sticks and mud and some cemented. Aasthan Latif Welfare
Society is the pioneers in Non-Formal Primary Education for
rural girls in whole of Pakistan. Its Project served as model
for other NGOs in Pakistan to open such schools as ours in all
other areas/provinces.
Incredibly, single-minded devotion of Alasti, which some saw
as sheer “madness” has borne fruit. Alasti has spread
light of education among thousands of rural girls who otherwise
didn’t have any access to schooling, through establishing
and running community girls primary schools in the rural villages
of Sindh, Pakistan.
Programs
Aasthan Latif Welfare Society (ALWS) has so far carried out
number of development activities in the whole district Thatta
and some parts of districts Tando Mohd Khan, Hyderabad, Karachi
& Badin of Sindh Province, Pakistan since 1989. Its main
focus always remained on the betterment of primary education
for girls in the rural and remote areas of these districts where
there is a lack of basic facilities. ALWS has so far worked
in more than 2500 villages of these districts and has a large
number of volunteers in these villages. Aasthan Latif Welfare
Society has been actively involved in improving rural livelihoods
through its projects of girl’s education, literacy, social
mobilization, women development, water & sanitation, environment
awareness, tree plantation, capacity building of community groups
etc.
The Confidence building of communities is the most valuable
asset of Aasthan Latif Welfare Society. Community Participation
is our main key of success in all our This community participation
& mobilization is achieved only after a long struggle and
efforts of more than 16 years of motivation and mobilization
of community.
The agent of change must also know the socio-economic conditions,
cultural norms and environments of the respondents. The total
staff & personnel of NGO are local and they knew the cultural
norms of the targeted area and environment. The NGO’s
personnel have the knowledge about the power relations and social
stratification in the communities of the target areas. Aasthan
Latif Welfare Society is not any outsider who just came to help
& facilitates communities of rural masses of Sindh, without
knowing their background, cultural norms and local environment.
Apart from NGOs personnel and staff, it has also core of both
trained and untrained volunteers in the targeted villages.
The different methods of effective communication & mobilization
such as workshops, community meetings, film & slide shows,
posters, training of communities, education gatherings, education
rallies, motivational campaigns etc. were used for community
mobilization.
Aasthan Latif Welfare Society has carried out number of development
activities in the district Thatta since 1989. Some of the major
development activities carried out are as under:
- Successfully demonstrated its gender awareness campaign
for its girl’s non formal education program during 1991-1996.
- Initiated its community Girls primary schools project from
the year 1996.
- Formed & trained more than 500 Village Development Committees
(VDCs) (both males & females) on Participatory Planning
& Management in 400 villages during 1990-1998.
- Trained Government’s formed School Management Committees
& local Community based organizations on community mobilization
during 2000-2002.
- Trained many community organizations on installation and
maintenance of shallow hand pumps and also provided shallow
hand pumps to some 75 villages in District Thatta.
- Aasthan Latif Welfare Society has also been actively involved
in the skill development training for rural females for income
generation and established women development centre in Thatta
in the year 1999.
Established One Middle School for Girls in the year 1997.
- Established 10 Adult Female Literacy Centres in the year
1996.
- Started free medical camps for rural children and women
in the rural areas from the year 1995.
- Provided sanitation material to some 75 villages during
the year 1994-1996.
- Initiated Tree Plantation & Environment Awareness Campaigns
1994-1995.
- Initiated Polio Awareness Campaign during 1993-1998 throughout
District Thatta Sindh, Pakistan.
- Initiated its Social Mobilization Campaign for Enhancing
Enrolment in Government Schools during 2000-2001.
- Initiated its Social Mobilization Campaign for Child Friendly
Schools during 2002.
- Initiated its adult literacy project for both males &
females during 2004-2005.
More than 50,000 rural community members including children
have so far directly benefited through our different projects
/ activities.
Contacts
Head Office:
Aasthan Latif Welfare Society
A-273, Block # 3, Gulshan Iqbal,
PO Box 17935, Karachi-75300,
Sindh, Pakistan
Fax: +92-21-5693120
email: info@alwspk.org
Regional Office:
Aasthan Latif Welfare Society
C-444, Unit 3, Hashimabad Township,
Makli, District Thatta,
Sindh, Pakistan
Tel: +92-29-8770423
email: aasthan@msn.com |