PREpared: Free Meal distribution in Maskeenabad, Rawalpindi

PREpared: Positive Reinforcement of Education through free meals for poverty struck communities in Maskeenabad Rawalpindi

Geographical Location

The project area is the Peoples Colony in Maskeen Abad Chak, located near Kalar Syedan and bordered by Dhoke Banara, Dhoke Khabba, and Dhoke Gangal. Within the colony is a Chak called Jalaldeen, which includes a slum area known as Maskeen Abad. The area is connected to Peshawar Road via Mysrial Road (Chor Harpal) and Range Road and features cemented roads, houses with access to electricity and water, and installed gas lines. However, residents still lack access to this natural resource for heating and cooking. The GPS location of the area is provided below:

33°34'58.0"N 73°00'19.6"E - Google Maps

Demographics

This area is home to around 6000 people, with 4000 belonging to Muslim households and the remaining half comprising the Christian community. Children constitute about 10% of the population. According to the Pakistan Statistics Bureau, nearly 60% of the population here falls below the poverty line, with the majority of them being in the labor class and having an average monthly income of less than Rs.20K. This amount is insufficient to meet their families' basic needs or to provide their children with a decent education. Despite these challenges, people from both religious communities coexist peacefully and share the common issues of illiteracy and poverty, which they are eager to eliminate from their small and humble community.

Need of the Project:

Whilst the people who are resident to the location have consented to support a project focusing on primary education as well as conventional technical and vocational training, the institute will also require a substantial support mechanism in order to guarantee sustainability for the enrolled students (continuous education up till Matric, enrollment in conventional technical and vocational training) and for the long term running of the establishment. The most important requirement is food, as children in the area had also left school as a result of limited financial capital to cover their nutritional requirements. This also correlates with the findings from the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey of 2020. Nutritional requirements of the children belonging to families who, as shown in the need based survey results, do not have a sustainable source of income.

Objectives

The objectives of this project are as follows:

1. Establishment of a canteen in technical institute maskeenabad focusing on provision of free food to the enrolled students and their families.
2. Conventional Vocational and Technical Training opportunity focused towards training 30 apprentices per quarter.
3. Establishing a supply chain for the provision of food in the canteen through 5 MOUs

Methodology:

The Indicator Sheet (Table 1) and Gantt Chart (Table 2) both provide a timeline as well as measuring tools through which the project monitoring and evaluation will be done. The location has already been established as well as with the need based survey the location has been confirmed and analyzed.

Project timeline: 1 year

Project target population: students completing up till matriculation and apprentices enrolled after matriculation for conventional technical and vocational training.

Project implementation: KKO will be directly involved in the implementation and ongoing completion of the project. KKO team will conduct updated baseline survey as well as continuous monthly analysis of the project progress. Furthermore, KKO will focus towards establishing industrial linkages whereby the project will be implemented and the indicators will be finalized.

KKO School canteen project will be advertised through social media  as well as door to door campaigns. The meals which will be distributed through the canteen will be monitored in terms of quality of ingredients as well as the number of meals distributed to families and children. These will be shared through monitoring and evaluation reports whereby the comments and feedback and suggestions of the people will be taken into account to help improve the quality of work.

The canteen will also serve as a practical training center for the apprentices and thus will be a state of the art institute.