The Establishment Of Education System In Slum Areas
Slums are such densely populated areas that lack or have no basic utilities such as water,electricity, gas and proper drainage. The residents of the slums are poor people who don’t have enough or almost no income to support their families. In Pakistan around 30 percent of the Lahore city is covered by slums. Slums are found everywhere in the world.
Lahore, which is labelled as the Paris of Pakistan, has massive infrastructure projects but there is an ugly side of this massive development i.e. increasing slums in these same neighbourhoods. Due to the lack of affordable housing, many people are settle in slums in areas across the city. Slums are found in Shahdara, along Ferozpur Road as well as in the newly developed areas like Johar Town. These settlements are generally located near open sewage channels or along the hazardous banks of River Ravi etc.
The majority of people living within these areas are street hawkers and daytime labourers. They earn very little and are not able to afford medical care or even hygienic food. These slums are formed by low-income communities that do not have the means to live in proper housing in the city, and they are a by-product of overpopulation.
Most importantly, within these areas, social problems such as crime, drug addiction, alcohol, high rates of mental illness and suicide are seen. These people move from rural areas of Pakistan towards Lahore, Karachi or other big cities in hopes of attaining a better life. But the reality is that they couldn’t get jobs and eventually settle in the slum communities.
Recently, while crossing River Ravi, I had a chance to explore and capture some moments of these residents of the slum areas. At the bank of River Ravi, i found young kids from the nearest slum areas enjoying and playing sports. It’s really heart wrenching for me to saw people in such miserable condition, like poor sanitary conditions, broken roads, polluted environment and resultantly drastic health conditions. Approximately, one million people drink contaminated water in Lahore, says Lahore’s Water and Sanitation Agency.
The problems that we were faced during the collection of data needed for the formation of the report were that the sample of population we targeted was generally illiterate and respondents were not able to answer the survey questionnaire on their own and they were also not openly participating and answering. They seemed to be afraid while answering the questions so we had to switch from surveying to interviews. Another limitation faced by us while collecting information is that due to limited time and resources we were not able to conduct a very extensive research and the number of mine respondents was limited to 40.
The all problems that we discussed above are related to slum areas but we select only one problem to solve it. The major problem that we observed was illiteracy. 86% of the total respondents stated that they are aware of the government schools nearby but 66% of the total respondents don’t send their children to school instead they make them work to support their family. Most of these children start working in early childhood with no prospects of getting any education.It’s my dream to do at least something for poor people So we decided to work on the education of slum children. we faced many hurdles to do this but we remained determined on our goal. The major problem was to understand the language of these people and many were not reply because they were afraid to say anything.
The requirements that are needed to establish the school are:
a)To provide adequate and comfortable facilities for teachers and students.
b) To create a conducive school environment.
c) To establish the required needs of education for effective teaching and learning.
d) To cultivate the spirit of co-operation and civic consciousness among students, teachers and parents.
e) To guide the students in facing the challenges of life.
f) The efforts of establishing schools as a social institution.
The process was really not easy because slum areas problems were much more that we were expecting. But i think education is the solution of all the problems that they are facing nowadays.By getting education they will become capable of gaining the necessities of life. They can adopt a healthy lifestyle. The major problem was to collect money to meet their needs. We also gain access to public for help. We also took help from NGOs. So by using multiple ideas, we finally do something for slum children education. I’m damn sure in future we do something bigger for their education and establish a big network of education in these areas.
“Education is the movement from darkness to light”.
I have learnt a lot from this project. I experienced those things that i had never experienced in my life.
Overall it’s a good experience of my life, i believe “Nothing is greater than humanity”.
Voice Note:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AZ_4F_svh84zUmTnFfNcDFrpHPYUX
