Background

Who We Are

Currently in Pakistan, there are over 20 million children who are not attending school. The literacy rate, one of the lowest in the regions, teeters at around 50 percent overall and a mere 25 percent in terms of female literacy. Although access to basic education in one of the most fundamental human rights, somewhere along the way, these children are being left behind by our current educational system. Investment in children, specifically in the areas of education and health, is essential to achieving equitable and sustainable human development. The gaps that exist in terms of access to schools are alarming, with huge discrepancies between rural and urban areas, girls and boys, not to mention income factors, which further limit access to schools. Pakistani women have the lowest participation rates in education in South Asia. Adult literacy rate is less than 49%. Recognizing the critical importance of primary education in furthering the cause of development in any society, the second goal of the Millennium Development Goals is to “achieve universal primary education” by 2015. Pakistan has made a commitment to work towards achieving this goal but the current formal school system is not able to reach all the children, particularly in such a short span of tifireworks help save picturee.

In order to achieve this target, there is a need for thinking ‘out of the box', developing new educational models which will broaden the scope of beneficiaries targeted and achieve results fast. It is based on this premise that a team of committed individuals, led by (Rtd) Ambassador Mansoor Alam, established FLAME (Friends of Literacy and Mass Education) and began opening schools catering specifically to the needs of those children who are unable to attend formal school due to various constraints including finances, time, age restrictions and distance from home.

FLAME is a registered, charitable organisation and its goal is to provide basic primary level education

to the poor and disadvantaged children currently denied their basic right of access to education. Working towards this objective FLAME has, since its inception in 2001, established 180 schools in different parts of Pakistan. FLAME also supports two nursery schools in the Mumbai area of India. Over 6,500 children including 4,000 girls in Pakistan are receiving free education, including free books, in these schools. The high standard of education in its schools and growing awareness in the public about the value of education now mean FLAME is being inundated with requests for hundreds of new schools.

Aims and Objectives

• To open 10,000 Non-formal Basic Education (NFBE) schools by 2015
• To launch 200 MHUs, one per set of 50 schools
• To establish 100 low-level vocational training centers in the next 5 years to impart technical skills to teenaged male and female students of FLAME schools to enable them to earn a decent living

Our Mission

1. To open 10,000 NFBE schools by 2015.

2. To launch 200 MHUs, one per set of 50 schools.

3. To establish 100 low level vocational training centers in the next 5 years to impart technical skills to grown up male and female students of FLAME schools to enable them to earn a decent living.

FLAME's mission is to promote literacy and increase access to basic education among the poorest children who are unable to attend the formal school system. These children are those that then fall victim to a host of social ills because they are growing up on the streets, with little purpose or direction in their lives. Some of these children are working in various odd jobs, in an effort to supplement the meager income of their families. Others fall prey to begging, some recruited into gangs, with little hope of breaking the cycle of poverty or ever improving their lives. FLAME reaches out to these children and offers them the opportunity to attend schools in their own neighborhoods, free of cost, allowing them to take the first step towards a brighter future.

Our Vision

• To make a substantial contribution to raising the rate of literacy, particularly among girl child, in Pakistan.
• To create a highly cost-effective basic literacy and healthcare model for the poorest and most disadvantaged children of Pakistan, which can inspire others and be replicated by them
• To ensure that these youth are then trained to be skilled workers, thus enlarging the pool of skilled labor in Pakistan and help alleviate poverty.

Vision Statement

To empower the poorest children through education to help them achieve a better future

Why Support

FLAME?  

How we are different

• Cost-effective model as the cost of establishing and running one school for 30-40 children for one year is merely Rs. 25,000 (US$ 480). FLAME removes the cost of with land, buildings and furniture. These home-based schools require three floor mats, a blackboard, 30-35 sets of books, slates and chalks, an electric fan, a water cooler for clean drinking water for a school to become functional.
  
• Due to flexibility of our model, particularly in terms of age restrictions that generally apply to schools, FLAME schools are able to offer education to school drop-outs and over-age children who would otherwise remain out of the loop .
  
• FLAME schools are able to accommodate more children because our model removes the constraints that generally hinder access to education including age restrictions, time, distance, social and income factors
  
• People of the community do not hesitate to send their girls to these schools which is why over 65% of our students are female.
  
• Provides basic healthcare facilities to the children living in the poorest communities.
  
• Largest NGO in the non-formal education sector which is providing education to over 7000 children in 180 schools in Islamabad, Karachi and rural Sindh .
  
• The non-formal model of education provides Madressah pupils an opportunity to join mainstream schools and study modern subjects in coordination with their religious studies, without compromising their religious development. Consequently, many Madressah children have joined FLAME schools .

Current Funding

FLAME has been funded through private donations of Pakistanis living in Pakistan and abroad, most notably, in the U.K., where people who know personally of its mission, values and the people who run its operation, have recognized its work. The FLAME UK chapter helps organize various charity functions on a periodic basis to support our schools and healthcare programme. Recently, FLAME has launched a local fundraising effort in which we are organizing several charity functions in Karachi and Islamabad in order to increase awareness about FLAME as well as garner additional financial support from people based in Pakistan.

One of our first fundraising events held in Pakistan was the staging of the musical comedy ‘The Producers' which was performed by a local theatre company, Made for Stage Productions. The musical ran successfully for 10 nights at the Arts Council and served as a welcome change in a city that had been glum due to a tense political situation in the aftermath of the Bugti assassination as well as the flood-like conditions due to intense rains. Despite these constraints, the production was a success and helped increase awareness of FLAME's work in the local community.

How FLAME spends the funds

Over 80 Percent of donations received by FLAME go directly to education and healthcare and just 19 percent goes on wages and administrative costs. FLAME's Chairman and all the members of its Governing Council and Executive Committee work voluntarily without any remuneration. Its accounts are regularly audited every year by a firm of chartered accountants and submitted to the concerned authorities for scrutiny. It will be available for public scrutiny by all its supporters and others on this website. (see financial information)

Programmes and Initiatives

Education Programme

FLAME has established 180 NFBE schools in Karachi and interior Sindh and managed 50 government schools in Islamabad. These 180 schools have over 6500 children. Some 300 children of the schools in Islamabad, which started earlier, have passed the Class 5 Board exams while 4000 children of schools in Sindh have passed their respective annual examinations and have been promoted to the next class.

Teachers of these schools are generally educated women of the community who are given support by FLAME to open these one-room schools in their neighborhood, generally in their own homes. FLAME provides them with the books/stationary, curriculum, blackboards, fans, water coolers, tarpaulin and floor mats. FLAME teachers are given a short training course about how to teach in the non-formal system before they start teaching and then once a year, they are given an intensive refresher training course, which is held during the summer holidays by a third party organization that specializes in teacher training.

Our Education is called ‘non-formal' because:

•  Most of the schools are home-based , located in local teachers houses therefore there is no infrastructure cost, either land or buildings, is incurred which makes our model very cost effective .

•  Strict age limit observed in formal schooling is not followed. Children who have never been to school are welcomed and get another opportunity to start or restart schooling.

•  Education is completely free which makes it attractive to the very poor parents who cannot afford to pay for the education of their children.

•  It is community-based , local and near to the home, encouraging female education in Pakistan. That is why 65% of the children in FLAME schools are girls.

•  A 5-year primary level course is completed in 4 years because the number of annual holidays is drastically reduced. However, the same syllabus and books are used in our system as prescribed in Government schools.

•  Teachers are trained and monitored. Quality of education is ensured by FLAME through annual 10-day training of teachers and by an effective monitoring system by field coordinators.

Basic Healthcare Programme:

Besides promoting literacy and basic education, FLAME also provides basic healthcare to the children of its schools who suffer from a number of common diseases caused by unhygienic living conditions and lack of resources to pay for medical care. In order to alleviate this situation, FLAME has started two Mobile Health Units (MHU), which provide basic healthcare to thousands of children in its schools in Karachi and Islamabad. FLAME employs nine female doctors who visit nine FLAME schools every week and examine and treat some 300 children per week or 1200 children per month. They also provide them with free medicines for illnesses such as cold and flu, stomach worms, scabies, skin infections, eye infections, anemia and head lice.

In addition to checking and treating children, FLAME doctors give them and their teachers, lectures on preventive medicines and good hygiene. FLAME manages to provide this essential service at a monthly cost of about Rs. 50,000 (US$830) per MHU. Thus, at a very low cost of less than Rs. 100,000 (US$1660) per month it not only give free treatment and medicines to about 1200 children per month but hygiene lessons in good healthcare habits to many more. This is having a positive effect in many ways, most of all in reducing the dropout rates and increasing school enrolment as well as increasing productivity of the students at school.

FLAME Doctor Nabeea examining FLAME pupil Sharmila, forced to move from the Peshawar Valley for work with her family, this refugee was given a second chance through FLAME.

Employment:

Another public service being performed by FLAME is providing jobs to 179 teachers, 9 doctors, 9 field coordinators/school inspectors, 3 drivers and 7 office employees. This form of job creation is very important in terms of economic uplift of the community. Some key aspects that make a teaching position with FLAME very attractive are that the teacher can earn while staying in her home and thus does not have to worry juggling her household responsibilities. Also, she saves money on transport for any other form of employment. Due to the flexible, afternoon timings, some women are able to earn from other activities in the rest of the day.

Vocational Training

FLAME schools serve the needs of students aged 4-14 years. It has been noted that there is an urgent need to ensure that thee children, after completing their primary education, have access to skills training centers in their areas. These training centers are designed to bridge the gap between study and employment, providing a path to dignity, self-worth and independence through employment. FLAME currently has three vocational training centers, one for Kashmiri refugees to learn tailoring skills, another in Baldia Town for sewing and a computer centre in Islamabad. Tailoring skills provide women with an income, because they can work from the home without disrupting their routine and causing friction within the normally conservative family routine. Skills taught range from sewing, beautician and computing and plumbing, electrician and driving lessons for boys. FLAME has plans to establish more skills training centre in the areas of its schools with at least two in each area to account for the needs of girls and boys of the community.

Lessons learned

As FLAME progresses we learn to work in new ways, responding to the feedback we gain from our projects. Many FLAME schools are in inaccessible areas, rural slums, accessed via tough roads, yet we emphasize the need to consistently monitor and support each and every school, to maintain high standards. Although FLAME offers a cost-effective model of informal schooling, our focus is constantly on ensuring quality education. Through FLAME's three tier system, schools are closely monitored:

1) Field co-coordinators (See picture) visit the schools three times a month and prepare feedback reports for our main offices which details their role in assisting the teachers in their work and their evaluation of school quality and teaching methods. A monitoring report is fed back to the executive committee.

2) FLAME Mobile Health Units mean the doctors visit one school four times a year. The Doctors also fill in forms to monitor the schools and the quality of teaching.

3)The chairman and members of the executive committee visit each FLAME school and meet the teachers in groups of 30/40 for interactive sessions, to ensure the teachers feel supported, and to respond to their specific needs. Such sessions are held every three months.

4) Teachers are trained every six months, after their initial training by BEHBUD, an organization that has worked in the field of teacher training for over twelve years.

Fifteen schools in interior Sindh, following inspection have been closed down for a short period of time until we find a new field coordinator, it was apparent that teachers salaries were being held by the field coordinator, having a negative impact on the quality of teaching. In response to this problem, the women of FLAME schools are now aided in opening their own bank accounts so that they can receive a cheque directly in their names to ensure the money goes into their pockets. This allows our teachers to exercise further control over their money, learn a new skill that will support them in savings initiatives for their children, and to learn to manage their own salary and develop further proficiency to promote independence. This scheme will also help make them credit-worthy, if they ever try to get a loan from a bank.

Although we have a cost effective method of promoting literacy, FLAME teacher's salary is often stretched to its limits, and we respond to this need. For example, after a severe summer, more water was being used inside the classroom and the price of water tankers soared as the demand to buy increased. We responded by providing a further Rs. 500 (US$8) to the FLAME teachers each month from July 2006.

AND…

Commitment of Teachers and Students:

Commitment of teachers of FLAME schools is remarkable. Though paid only Rs. 1,000 (US$18 per month), teachers often go to the houses of children who do not come to school for a few days to bring them back to school. They continue to teach even when suffering from serious illnesses or facing difficult circumstances. For example, when the roof of a school in Baldia Town collapsed, the teacher continued to teach in scorching heat under the open sky, until a new roof was fixed by FLAME. In another case, FLAME had to open a school in a small roadside shop because of lack of a suitable alternative. Although only half the class of 30 could sit inside the shop, the children kept seeking admission. Over 30 children sat in the open on the roadside for 6 months, until a shade was built and the sides were covered with tarpaulin to protect them from the sun, the dust and traffic fumes. Despite the harsh conditions the number of children kept growing until it reached over 100 and an evening shift had to be created to accommodate them.

FLAME school, Baldia town, Karachi. Against the barren landscape on suburban slum above, backing onto a grave yard, the setting of the school could not be more symbolic.