e-Newsletter, September 2020


ITA welcomes children Back to School	Covid-19 Webinar Series	Campaign against Child Domestic Labour

Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) welcomes children back to school with strict SOPs. Children return to school with lively learning that continued at home throughout the lockdown. Children from across Pakistan express their love for writing and drawing. As schools are reopening, it's important that all SOPs issued by the government are strictly followed to ensure that everyone is safe at school. ITA is conducting capacity building workshops in this regard to help teachers understand and implement all the SOPs issued by the federal and provincial education departments.	Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) hosted a webinar titled “SDG 4, Covid-19 and Building Back Better” on September 18, 2020 as part of its webinar series that aim to bring together experts and practitioners to discuss COVID-19 and its multiple challenges, particularly in the fields of learning and education. The webinar, hosted in collaboration with Foundation Open Society Institute (FOSI) Pakistan, aimed at identifying the most effective strategies through which Pakistan’s education sector may build back better after schools reopening and is able to provide learning continuity to all those...	The campaign to End Child Domestic Labour in Pakistan #EndCDL, a children-led nationwide campaign initiated by ITA in collaboration with many child rights organizations and individuals, is successfully running across Pakistan. Many activities have been held to advocate against CDL since the campaign was launched – webinars and sessions were arranged for capacity building of the Child Champions under the mentors. A number of posters, slogans, advocacy letters and videos have been generated through the active participation of Child Champions and mentors...

Children’s Literature Festival
CLF celebrates International Literacy Day 2020
CLF celebrated International Literacy Day 2020 with multiple activities. There were reading activities, Kitab Gari, mind mapping, storytelling, poetry and prose, performing arts, music and much more.

Alumni of CLF Young Author Award 2019-20

The alumni of CLF Young Author Award 2019-20 took part in Literacy Day 2020 celebrations with Online Readings of the winning stories.

CLF also collaborated with
Children Library Complex (CLC)
for Group Reading using Big Books
Watch Here

CLF Publications

CLF Publications are encouraging new genres and diverse topics for children. Get the copies of latest CLF Publications from CLF’s website or Daraz.pk.
Visit

Kitab Gari

CLF Kitab Gari regularly visits marginalized communities in Lahore. The Kitab Gari is equipped with 800+ books, digital tablets for tech-enabled learning, board games, arts and crafts and a Cinema Ghar that shows films for edutainment.


Online Book Club		Honoring CLF Advisor Rumana Husain

In another leap forward for Online Book Club, CLF has collaborated with Children Library Complex (CLC) for The Shared Bookshelf to have regular Book Club meetings at CLC and on Zoom.		CLF honors Rumana Husain, author and CLF advisor, for her outstanding healing, learning and caring contributions during Covid-19 for children in Pakistan and beyond. ITA and CLF tribe is proud of Rumana Husain for conducting 174 daily storytelling sessions since March.

Pakistan Literacy Project

ITA is going to establish 20 “Modern School Libraries” in Lahore and Bahawalpur districts under the Pakistan Literacy Project in partnership with Room to Read and in collaboration with School Education Department, Government of the Punjab.

Siyani Sahelian

On September 8, 2020, Lord Tariq Ahmad, Minister for South Asia and the Commonwealth at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) paid a virtual visit to the educational and training sites of the Siyani Sahelian program (2018-2021) being implemented in South Punjab by ITA and supported by FCDO. During the visit, he interacted with the teams running the program and spoke with beneficiaries currently enrolled in various strands. The UK minister talked about possible areas to work together on shared interests and build on collaborations to get more girls into schools.



Siyani Sahelian celebrated International Literacy Day at hubs.	Meet Siyani Saheli Hajra Bibi – one of our most active entrepreneurs from Bahawalpu	Siyani Sahelian protest against the motorway rape case. Now is the time for systemic change to stop gender based violence at all levels.u
	Assistant Director National Vocational and Technical Training Commission (NAVTTC) Multan, Mr. Kashif Raheem and coordinator NAVTTC Bahawalpur, Mr. Asif took stock of the Siyani Sahelian Program in Rahim Yar Khan. They visited the SS TVET centers and were satisfied by the Covid-19 safety measures in place.
Siyani Sahelian team conducting capacity building workshops to help teachers understand and implement all SOPs for schools reopening.

Creating Spaces



As living under with COVID-19 became the new normal, Creating Spaces teams finally resumed their field-level activities following strict SoPs provided by the government to keep everyone safe during the trainings. Recently, four field level activities were conducted in the respective districts of Sindh and Punjab with women, men, boys and the district government to comprehend the current scenario and its adverse effects on women. The discussions mainly focused on present policies and laws and why it is of high significance to generate rapid legal and social responses from a gendered perspective, especially in the time of crisis to provide essential services for the safety and security of vulnerable groups.	To train and sensitize men and boys on Gender Positive Norms, modelling should be a top priority in this patriarchal structure. A sensitization session with men and boys was conducted in Lahore by ITA in collaboration with Oxfam in Pakistan.	ITA in collaboration with Oxfam in Pakistan organized an interactive session in Umerkot on Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013, Domestic Violence (Prevention & Protection) Act 2013, its implementation challenges and recommendations.

ITA partners with Malala Fund

ITA has partnered with Malala Fund to promote girls’ education in Pakistan. Under this initiative, ITA is looking forward to promote interest and progress towards elevating girls’ education and introducing innovative interventions to impact the most vulnerable.

ASER Pakistan

ASER Pakistan conducted the piloting of International Common Assessment of Numeracy (ICAN) tool in Lahore, Bahawalpur, Muzaffargarh and Rahim Yar Khan districts of Pakistan. ICAN is an open-source, robust and easy-to-use tool that assesses foundational numeracy of children aged 5-16 years and is available in 11 languages, including Urdu. ICAN was developed through a collaborative effort between PAL Network member organizations in 13 low and middle-income countries across Africa, America, and Asia. ASER Pakistan, with support from the PAL Network, tested the common set of numeracy items under ICAN 2019 in Toba Tek Singh district of Punjab. http://aserpakistan.org/International-Common-Assessment-of-Numeracy-ICAN

Safe Internet and School Outreach Program (SIOSP)

ITA, in partnership with Telenor Pakistan, is organizing an internationally recognized 1-hour training/orientation sessions on “Safe Internet Program” for the middle and high school students (between 9-15 years of age) and teachers across Pakistan. These trainings aim to educate the children of Pakistan on the safe use of internet and is provided free of cost. Several chains like Roots Millennium, Roots International, Beaconhouse School System, Headstart Schools, Westminster, Dar-e-Arkam, Allied Schools, Khadunia High School, OPF, Supernova School, The Science School, Trust Schools, SOS, Bazeecha Trust and many more have joined us on this program, enabling us to train over 102,000 students and 2500 teachers across all provinces of Pakistan within 4 months’ period.

Initially it was not possible to conduct physical trainings in classrooms due to COVID-19, therefor SIOSP teams adopted a digital/online approach with the aim of conducting training sessions as part of online/virtual classrooms at schools. These include using online mediums like Zoom, MS Teams, Google Hangout, Elaborate Google Forms, Whatsapp Groups and other platforms that support mass online delivery. However, the program initiated physical trainings after the schools re-opening on 25th September onwards.

The program has moved to its final phase i.e. Initiating policy dialogues & panel discussion with Federal and Provincial Government departments, text book boards and digital activists etc. to seek recommendations for developing a progressive Digital Safety Curriculum. We have successfully conducted two policy dialogues in Azad Jammu & Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan. These dialogues took place in form of a panel discussions led by ITA with leading educationists, ministers, curriculum leaders, UN representatives and IT experts as panelists.

Policy Dialogue, A webinar on "Safe Internet and School Outreach 2020" was also held by ITA team.
Watch here:
https://www.facebook.com/itacec/videos/745962675974192

Utho Bolo

ITA's Utho Bolo team arranged a bloggers meet and greet to engage and motivate young people to advocate for Life Skills Based Education (LSBE). The event saw a small presentation on the importance of LSBE, followed by a panel discussion on the topic. The participants shared their experiences and pledged to play their role as bloggers, influencers, Youtubers and broadcasters to increase awareness about these subjects.

ITA is conducting community sessions under Utho Bolo project on LSBE and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR).

LSBE is found to be an effective psychosocial intervention strategy for promoting the positive social and mental health of adolescents which plays an important role in all aspects such as strengthening coping strategies and developing self-confidence and emotional intelligence.

ITA organized a three-day Teachers' Training under Utho Bolo project to enhance their capacity and skills on LSBE. At least 25 teachers participated in this exciting workshop and learnt about LSBE from our trainers.

ITA CEO Baela Raza Jamil appeared on HUM News morning show Subah Say Agay to talk about the importance of LSBE and its inclusion in curriculum.

Watch here: https://youtu.be/GjM-_NsNWlk

Life Skills for Kids



Literacy Day Celebrations at LSK campus with various art and learning activities to promote literacy among the students. Proud of LSK students who went from trashpickers to become literate citizens of Pakistan through this program.		Following the motorway incident, ITA arranged a session on Child Safety for the community children and women involved in waste collection.


International Literacy Day	International Peace Day	International Sign Language Day

On September 8, 2020, ITA celebrated International Literacy Day with a focus on multiple learning programs for children, youth, adults, girls and ALL. ITA is working to promote learning beyond textbooks by introducing innovative and effective pedagogies and teaching methodologies to achieve SDG 4. Literacy Day celebrations with SOPs at Government Girls Secondary School, Karachi. Children participated in story writing, vocabulary games, memory assessment and several activities.	On September 21, 2020, ITA celebrated International Peace Day by spreading the message of peace for a better society. Peace begins with Education for ALL. Let's make it happen!	On September 23, 2020, ITA celebrated International Sign Language Day by sharing some storytelling videos in Pakistan Sign Language developed by CLF in collaboration with Deaf Reach. Amai and the Banyan Tree by Fauzia Minallah Our Superhero Edhi Baba by Maria Riaz Children of Light by Fauzia Minallah