REACHING FLOOD AFFECTED CHILDREN IN PAKISTAN

Alif Laila Book Bus Society has set up sixteen tent schools/creative learning spaces in flood effected areas of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan.

The education sector has been severely impacted by the recent flood and rain emergency in fall 2022. At least 25,993 schools have been damaged or destroyed in the region of Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab and KP due to the floods with data collection still ongoing. In addition, more than 7,062 schools that were not damaged have turned into relief camps to provide shelter to the flood affected population. The use of schools as temporary shelter for displaced people is disrupting schooling and the ongoing academic year, and expected cause loss of learning materials and further damages to education infrastructure including WASH facilities, requiring cleaning and renovation.

Based on current estimation, more than 3.5 million children have had their education interrupted due to the destruction all over the country. In addition, teaching and learning materials including books, copies, blackboards, tables, and other education furniture worth millions of rupees have been completely destroyed as well.

Through our project “Humara School” which means (our school) we provided them tents, clothing, medicines, toys, books and other fun materials for children and build a creative learning environment. The locations we worked in are Shikar Pur, Jacobabad, Mirpur Khas, Khairpur Meerus in Sindh, Rajanpur in Punjab and Musa Khail, Kohlu, Jaffarabad, Naseerabad, Kacchi and Dera Bugti in Balochistan.

This was the first phase of our emergency work in reaching children effected by floods whereas in phase two we are renovating schools, specifically one library room where we will be providing furniture, books, stationery etc along with renovating destroyed walls and flooring in the next quarter. We will be setting up seven Humara Kutubkhana” (our library) projects in Sindh.