Mega Project Blog 2 — The Story So Far
According to the most recent data from the International Labor Organization, the world has made the least progress in protecting two of the most at-risk populations: children between the ages of five and 11, and young girls. To imagine this vulnerability factor in Pakistan is unfortunately not so difficult, for we can find kids begging for money almost at every traffic signal, in and around shopping markets and within households as the house help. Not only is this a crime against humanity, but it is also a matter of great disappointment for all societies that have failed to protect innocence of these children, trading their childhoods for money.
As the contemporary form of slavery continues to haunt such kids, more people need to come together for a permanent fix. Unfortunately, individual efforts cannot bring in a macro-level impact except that we can create a ray of hope for at least some kids who are willing do away with child labor. Our Mega Circle at Amal Academy thus initiated this “Child Labor Relief Program” (CLRP) focusing primarily on providing sustainable academic and primary health care assistance to such kids who are willing to get an education and get rid of this slavery in the shape of unwanted labor. The crux of our project is to provide a safe space for selected children by providing them an opportunity to improve their conditions and create for themselves a ladder to climb up to their potentials without having to worry about money.
Recent Activities & Impact:
In the past couple of weeks, every member of our group mobilized to attract sustainable donors. As a result of our individual efforts, we’ve managed to attain over 48 donors so far. In the previous two weeks we performed the following activities:
Virtual Coordination
We arranged a few meetings on Zoom as well as actively engaged with each other on our WhatsApp group. We interacted to discuss numerous challenges that we were facing particularly in convincing sustainable donors. A detailed presentation was provided by Hasnain and Amna on our modified action plan and we brainstormed for new solutions to address our cause. This was also helpful in getting to know the issues that each member was facing, both professional and personal, so that we could better align our project activities without costing someone their other responsibilities. Problem-solving has come in handy to bring in better organization and plan management.
Field Activities
Each member was assigned to carefully sign up at least 8 sustainable donors (48 in total) who will provide PKR 150 every month to fulfill the academic and health care requirements of two adopted children. For this purpose, one of our members Hasnain traveled to Jhang as well as Lahore not only to sign up for donors but to also expand the outreach of our social enterprise for future milestones. For this purpose, Kashif, Amna, and Hasnain collaborated in Lahore. Amna arranged a meeting of a potential referral Mr. Bukhari who carefully identified two children from Anarkali, Lahore who are fulfilling our selection criteria, and currently, the work is in progress for the admission of both kids. Convincing their parents as well as scrutinizing their background for selection and adoption is still in progress. Hasnain visited the KIPS Lahore aiming to expand our idea amongst the various top educational institutions in Lahore and with their aid, we can create an even bigger impact.
Hamid visited numerous potential donors in Gujranwala and Lahore and so did Shahbaz and Noor Fatima. And as of this Friday (October 11,2020), we’ve successfully managed to increase the targeted donors up to 48.
Social Media Impact
Due to the pandemic, the significance of social media becomes more relevant and for this purpose, we created a platform on Instagram. We’re currently collaborating with numerous digital influencers for the purpose of awareness of our social enterprise. Hamid Jalal, Noor Fatima, and Shahbaz are actively involved in this aspect and they plan to expand outreach to an even bigger audience as well as on different platforms in the coming weeks.
Challenges we faced and solutions to overcome them:
Mega Group Transitions
One of the biggest challenges for us during the execution of the project was the continuous Mega Circle transitions as two fellows left this group and two new fellows — Hamid Jalal and Noor Fatima — joined us just a few weeks ago. This transition meant that for both of them this was a fresh beginning and initially, we struggled to collaborate and get everyone on one page. This was tackled by an extensive detailed meeting where the entire project was revisited and presented to the new fellows. We got the chance to understand and know each other better through virtual interactions and therefore, achieved a comfort level that allowed us to function better.
Rejection from the Potential Donors
One of the major challenges we faced earlier was outright rejections from potential donors. Most of them were not convinced on how we are tackling child labor through the project at a macro level. Some argued that the sustainability factor is unrealistic. But that is the beauty and essence of our project i.e. it is unprecedented. It is understandable that we as students cannot create such a massive impact with such limited resources however we can initiate some impact within our capacity. And that initiative is providing at least two students with full-fledged academic support for more than a decade of their academic life which is the way forward. Despite rejections, we still managed to convince people by approaching them in an improved manner and of course with better research than we did initially.
The feedback from potential donors also allowed us to ponder on some important aspects of the project such as how do we plan to help the child grow in a challenging environment without them developing an inferiority complex i.e. mental health issues that may arise when they upgrade to their academic status. We were also able to revisit our strategies to ensure that no loopholes remain.
Pandemic Limitations
The Covid-19 pandemic is still one of the most relevant challenges we have had in initiating this project. CLRP requires an adequate amount of physical coordination in each of its action plans, whether it is mega circle coordination or the process of identification, selection, and admission of the child. The element of physical coordination is still extremely limited in this regard, however we continued to make progress. Moreover, we will be appointing a caretaker who will be visiting these children and ensuring that they are gaining the experience we wish them to have.
Time Barriers
This is arguably the most challenging mega project of this fellowship and a huge hurdle in execution is the limited time we have. Obviously, the entire project is a complex process and requires detail scrutinizing and background checks for sustainable implementation. The time we have for executing all this is relatively short and extremely challenging and we are only tackling this hindrance with our proactive approach.
Limited Funds
Another area of reflection for us is that our resources are limited. This is one of the major challenges for any social enterprise led by some students who themselves do not have a stable source of income yet. In order to increase our funds, we have decided to expand our cause in the future by creating awareness and attracting more donors by revisiting our revenue model and modify it based on our requirements. Our future collaboration with CLEP — Child Labor Eradication Program — is another solution to this issue.
Partial Commitments
This aspect can also not be ignored as it is understandable that not everyone will fully commit to our cause for such a long period. Therefore, we intend to collaborate with CLEP Faisalabad as they will sponsor our cause in case we lose our committed donors. This will also allow us to loop in more children by getting the attention of this already high-functioning organization through a larger exposure to Lahore and its universities.
Key Accomplishments
- Managed to manage 48+ sustainable donors collectively
- Each group member has managed to raise PKR 2400 each for the first-month donation fund
- Accumulated to PKR 14,400 so far that will cover the first-month academic expenses of our adopted children
- Engaged numerous digital influencers to raise awareness for our cause
- Actively engaged with CLEP Faislabad who have agreed to collaborate with us in regard to the scrutiny of the child’s background and provision of their experts for identification in this regard
- Assigned two caretakers (one for each child) who will watch over each kid and provide a report every fortnight on the child’s status back to CLRP
Sustainability Factors:
Some of the sustainability factors that we propose for our project include the following:
Overall, we are quite satisfied with the way our activities are aligning and the progress that we are making. We are hopeful that we will pull off the project and make the impact we anticipated since the beginning.
