Saba Javed

The Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal (PBM) has decided to expand the network of Women Empowerment Centers (WECs) from district to tehsil level across the country, WealthPK reports. The increase in the number of WECs will help PBM accommodate more women and impart vocational training to them to empower them financially. PBM Managing Director Amir Fida Paracha told media that presently around 163 WECs were operating across the country to provide free vocational training to widows, orphans and poor girls in modern trades like dress designing, embroidery, computer courses and fabric painting with a stipend of Rs50 per day on attendance basis through biometric system.

Considering the importance of the project for making the women self-sufficient, the scope of WECs, earlier established at the district level, will be expanded to the tehsil level. The PBM has also started a process of certification with the help of the National Vocational and Technical Training Commission so that the women, who complete the courses and qualify for the test, can get a proper certificate for employment purposes. “Through a public-private partnership, PBM is establishing a WEC in the suburbs of Islamabad for which land and computers have been provided by two donors.

Now PBM will deploy its own employees in the centre for the sustainability of the initiative,” said Amir Fida. With the support of a Turkish NGO, a special course in stone cutting and polishing is being launched in the WEC of Gilgit-Baltistan to generate local earning sources. The PBM will also launch a pilot project to facilitate orphan children accommodated in “sweet homes” across the country to pursue their education up to graduation level. Earlier, the PBM orphanages were catering to the educational needs of these children till matric level but now the pilot project is being launched to help them acquire education till graduation level.

“Presently, 51 ‘sweet homes’ across the country are catering to the needs of 4,355 orphans in terms of their accommodation, education and well-being through adopting a modern welfare approach,” he said. The PBM has planned to set up a technical school along with each “sweet home” so that those children, who cannot get an education or lack the tendency to get a formal education, can be equipped with vocational and technical skills.

To address the issue of increasing child labour in the country, 159 schools for rehabilitation of child labour (SRCLs) across the country are working to withdraw children from their workplaces and bring them into mainstream education through non-formal means of education. The children passing out from SRCLs are admitted to the government schools for education up to VIII grade through a PBM grant of Rs4,100. The Orphans and Widow Support Programme (OWSP) of PBM, a conditional cash transfer intervention, is basically designed to extend financial assistance to widows with a focus on orphans, especially on girls’ education.

The OWSP provides Rs8,000 per month and Rs16,000 per month to families having one child and more than one child, respectively, upon meeting compliance of 75% school attendance. A total of 692 families have been paid Rs23.598 million since December 2020. The first phase of OWSP will be launched in Karachi next week as a pilot project while it will be launched in Lahore afterward to reach out to more families.

The Individual Financial Assistance (IFA) initiative of PBM supports the poor, widows, destitute women, orphans and physically challenged persons by providing general assistance, education, medical treatment and rehabilitation to them. “An amount of Rs9,269,125,641 has been disbursed among the needy from July 2019 to December 1, 2022, under IFA,” said the managing director of PBM.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk