This organization is training Pakistani youth to become entrepreneurs and educationists

Parwaan, an initiative of Children’s Global Network Pakistan (CGN-P) and the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, is training educated but unemployed young Pakistanis to gain entrepreneurial and Early Child Development (ECD) pedagogical skills.

CGN-P is a non-profit organization that has been working in the education sector since 2002 with the main goal of making quality education accessible to young children. They currently have a presence in 43 districts of all four provinces and are working on several education-related projects which include Ilm Possible – Take A Child To School, Civic Education, Skills for Employability Project, and Building Skills for Life. Among these is a project called Parwaan.

Parwaan, an organization that serves the motto “Early Childhood Education & Development”, strongly believes that investing in young children will provide long-term benefits and particularly focusing on children from disadvantaged backgrounds promotes social justice and could, in time, eradicate the vicious cycles of poverty. Their work, strongly driven by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aims to construct reforms and interventions targeted on the educational development of children under the age of 6.

In step with these efforts, Children’s Global Network Pakistan (CGN-P) under its Parwaan Preschool Programme, conducted a six-week long training course for 20 young entrepreneurs over the summers. The training programme was recently concluded with a proper ceremony at the Academy for Educational Planning and Management, Islamabad which was attended by senior government officials, important community figures, young entrepreneurs, and various concerned personnel.

At the event, Minister of State for Federal Education and Professional Training Muhammad Balighur Rehman spoke of the importance of such an initiative,

“Under the Article 25-A, it is the state’s responsibility to provide free and compulsory education to children of age 5 to 16 years at the federal, provincial or local level. However, due to fiscal limitations, it is not possible for the state to provide free pre-primary education to 3 to 5-year-old children. Therefore, I appreciate the efforts of Parwaan Preschool-A School Readiness Programme collaborating with the Federal Education Ministry to train educated unemployed youth in entrepreneurial and ECD pedagogical skills to open early childhood development (ECD) centres in their communities in rural areas of Islamabad. These centres will cater to the children of age group 3-5 years.”

Mehnaz Aziz, President Parwaan and Chief Executive CGN-P, at the event, spoke of the success that the programme has had. She commended the efforts of those trainees who have already opened their ECD centers before the completion of training and have started the enrollment.

All early Childhood Development (ECD) Centres under Parwaan cater to the development and educational needs of young children from 3 to 5 years of age. They also train other young entrepreneurs and provides them with the necessary skills to carry on the development work in their own communities.The Parwaan Preschool Programme is currently functional in five districts including Khushab, Bahawalpur, Kohat, Charsadda and Islamabad Capital Territory. However, Parwaan has a strong motivation to expand to 30 districts and train over 6000 entrepreneurs.

What makes this programme so effective is that it is empowering young, employed people with the necessary skills impact the lives of children from under-privileged backgrounds. This recent training program by Parwaan saw a large number of female participants who will now go on to form Early Childhood Development (ECD) Centres in their own communities and contribute to shaping the lives of young children.

Some information is credited to The News
Image Source – Parwaan