This article was originally posted on Thursday, 24 November 2016
Thanks to your support we have been funding eleven schools and nineteen Sunday schools in or near the brick kilns of Pakistan. You also allow us to fund eight young people to attend Gujranwala Christian Technical Training College which has a wonderful Christian Principal.
When John and I visited the schools and Sunday schools we were very impressed with the teachers and the support from parents. Remember these are bonded slaves working in the brick kilns but most of the children had uniforms provided by their parents. It was also impressive to see some of these children reading and writing not only in their native Urdu language but also in English. Our hope is to get as many children reading, writing, understanding the bible and being able to do simple arithmetic as we can possibly manage.
The numbers attending these simple one or two room schools is growing and several schools need another teacher. On this trip I did not see many children working making bricks. I was told the government has passed a law forbidding children to work in the brick kilns. We hope this will be mean the children will attend school for longer rather than being forced to make bricks to help their parents. Education does not guarantee work but if you can read and write it opens doors of opportunity. We too often take the precious gift of education for granted.
I am a little concerned how we will manage to sustain all these schools for the long term. I would appreciate it if you know anyone personally or any education trust or organisations interested in education for the poor that you would mention our work to them. At the moment we pay up to £54 a month for a teacher. A two roomed school with two teachers, books, oversight and training is costing about £2700 a year. Please pray it will be sustainable.
