Teach a Kid Make Individual Life

by

Zainab Khan | Sep 2, 2020 | in Ecosystem best practice challenge | Building innovation capacity

State your goals.

1. Building digital and literacy skills of the out of school children living in the remote areas of Pakistan with the help of a digital inclusive education system of TAKMIL.


2. Digital transformation of the whole community by bringing them out of digital isolation.


3. Strengthen the current digital education model of TAKMIL and increasing its applicability and scalability.

What problems (particularly in value chain competitiveness and global disruption) are your community’s stakeholders facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic?

We are targeting the two major problems of Out of school children and lack of digital skills in the remote and digital isolated communities of Pakistan.    

The problem of out of school children in Pakistan has the world’s second-highest out of school children with 22.8 million children having no access to schools or education. The country has been amongst those with the lowest literacy rates. 44% of the children between 5 to 16 years of age have no digital or literacy skills that could help them in improving their living standards. Due to lack of literacy and digital skills and inaccessibility and unaffordability of digital equipment, these children are further plunging deep into a life of poverty and child labor with no opportunity of an improvement making their survival difficult.

Another problem is that as the world is moving to the ‘Digital Age’ a big chunk of our population is digital illiterate and isolated. This digital divide is driving economic disparity between those who are digitally literate and those who are digitally illiterate to unforeseen levels. These problems are rooted deeply in the same underprivileged, slums, war-affected, and rural communities from where the out of school children belong. These communities are subjected to a substandard system leading to economic and social issues, including lower GDP per capita, child labor, poverty, unemployment, societal crime, and poor quality of life.  

The reasons behind the existence of these problems is the lack of resources, opportunities and cultural mindsets prevalent in these communities for centuries fail to see the importance of education and digital skills in changing their lives. The children in these communities are subjected to a lifelong cycle of child labor and social ignorance due to no education concept. They are unaware of the benefits of digital skills in transforming their lives.

In addition, due to COIVD-19, our target audience is the most affected of the current pandemic as they have lost their incomes, their health is at risk and their survival has become more difficult. The closure of schools and loss of income by their parents has put the children at the risk of falling more into a life of poverty and child labor.

What minimum viable solution(s) are you proposing to address the challenge(s) in your community?

 We offer an innovative technology-based digital literacy model that consists of an ICT Integrated Learning System along with the Digital Assessments and Digital Monitoring Systems. We take this model right into the communities which are digitally isolated and provide digital literacy there. The system runs offline with solar panels and the students are equipped with tablets that they use on regular basis for the purpose of getting an education. They are delivered specially designed video lessons via projectors and laptops. To further enhance the digital skills of the students they are offered various computer courses that could help them in the future in improving their income levels.
The problem of digital isolation is solved when TAKMIL digital education model is deployed in such areas. The children of these communities are given the opportunity to have access to digital media and devices and learn from them. Moreover, to overcome the problem of cultural mindsets awareness sessions and engagement is the solution of this problem that we focus on. We hire facilitators from the same communities who have a better understanding of the cultural mindsets regarding education existing in their communities. A facilitator engages the community in regular sessions, highlights the problem, and motivates the community to take an initiative towards a better life for their children through education and digital transformation.

Our solution is unique in the context that we do not depend on traditional infrastructure and our system has 100% applicability in regions with no schools. Our model is primarily designed for non-commercial use, however, the model has potential to generate revenue commercially for the operating model. Moreover, our model does not require a 24/7  internet and can easily work offline with renewable energy sources. These characteristics make it a highly cost-effective Model for a large scale.

Share your story (your narrative)

My passion is ignited and reignited every day when I see optimism, hope, excitement, and passion in the children who are part of TAKMIL's projects. I have been raised in a society where child begging, child labor, and child marriage are common societal evils. In 2016, I was a research student in the top-ranked university of my country, yet only a few kilometers away was a community of children who would clean windshields of cars, sell flowers on bus stops just to earn enough for a daily meal. I volunteered to help these children learn about science, environment, hygiene and I could see their energies being transformed into potentially bright futures. I had a personal experience with an Afghani child who had a tragic past of losing home to terrorism. Yet, education gave him hope and today he is enrolled in a degree program. 

In 2017, TAKMIL was founded with the same motivation of giving hope and opportunities to such children to fulfill their dreams. For this mission, we target those children who are at the bottom of the social pyramid, who struggle to survive each day, who are chained in child labor and begging activities and are confined to a life of no improvement. These children are found in slums and the remote communities of Pakistan where they lack basic facilities let alone school. The future of these children is at stake as the world progresses daily but they possess neither digital nor literacy skills.

Hence we started TAKMIL as a mission to transform these lives and secure their future by providing them digital and literacy skills right in their communities. We have overcome the challenges of infrastructure, electricity, and distance by establishing tech-based community schools that run on solar power. Our goal is to equip these children with such digital and literacy skills that can help them in income generation and keeping up with the fast-paced world. 

The change and transformation in these children in only 3 years are quite visible and this change has a trickle-down effect as it is leading to a decrease in the digital divide and ending various socio-economic issues. We promise to continue providing literacy and digital skills in these communities as long as no child is left out of school!

Please provide any additional relevant information that you would like to share.

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