We highly appreciate the interest that has been taken by the electronic and print media in the education of deprived children. Some of the excerpts are reproduced below along with their web site address:

 

Dawn Islamabad
Monday March 08,2010

Five women get ActionAid, Nomad awards for courage
By Jonaid Iqbal

...However, Zehra Fasahat story revolved around the abandoned street children. She went outside her house, near a dirt dump, and asked them would they like to attend school and learn.

She started with eight street boys and girls, and now her school system Rah-e-Amal -has over 200 children whom the society had neglected. Among them, four boys and five girls have reached college.

The News International
Friday December 21,2001

Where there is a will
A permanent place needed for 'school'

RAWALPINDI: Looking for an address in Westridge, I drove down a narrow road and came to a dead end where I was surprised to see a ground with children sitting on cotton rugs, in four separate groups.

The News International
Friday January 30,2004

An out of the ordinary day.
 
ISLAMABAD: Taking time out form his busy schedule, the ambassador of Turkey, Hasan Kemal Gur visited the Rah-e-Amal school, along with his wife and spent some with the children, going to each 'classroom' in turn and interacting with them. Each class recited poems in Urdu or English, answered questions; gave their names when asked and said "thank you," politely as the visitors moved on. There was a palpable air of excitement among them as it was the first time any ambassador has taken the trouble of vesting the school and seen the conditions under which the children are being educated and taught the valuable, character building lessons of honesty, tolerance, brotherhood and dignity of labour....




 

The News
Sunday September 09, 2007

A school for hope.
 
One of the highlights of a recent trip of Rawalpindi was visiting a school that was started about a decade ago, for street children.
 
The school started out with just a handful of children. The driving force is still the founderess Ms Zehra Fasahat, a retired naval officer's wife. She says she first approached some street children who were scavenging for food in a nearby rubbish heap. Their first reaction was distrust and suspicion -- they thought she must be wanting their vote or planning to 'sell them'.

But some of the children turned up at her house some days later and said they wanted her to start teaching them, and things simply progressed from there. Today there are over 200 children in the school. They come from the most deprived section of our society, but despite their adverse circumstances, their siprit and resolve is outstanding.

Their pride in their school, 'Rah-e-Amal' is obvious. Most of them wear the school's dark blue uniform with the school badge, and this sense of belonging and institutional pride seems to have given an added dimension to their lives...
 

SOUTH ASIA FOUNDATION.
2002

...
at the primary level, too, SAF would like to assist innovative educational initiatives such as the one by an enterprising Pakistani housewife, Zehra Syed, who had set up an open-air school in the courtyard of her house....
Distance education would also greatly benefit grassroots educational initiatives such as the one by an enterprising Pakistani housewife, Zehra Syed, who has set up an open-air school in the courtyard of her house in Rawalpindi for the education of stray children and those of her domestic servants. This model may well be emulated in other SAARC countries in a sprit of regional cooperation, just as SAF is considering a proposal to link some fifty SOS villages with a number of Open Universities.