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Social Development Program
is mainly emphasizing on promoting long-term &
Sustainable development by encouraging communities to be
self-reliant and to maximize their own potential &
resources. This ensures empowerment at the grass roots
level and involves the community as an important
stakeholder in all the activities, including need
identification, decision making & implementation.
Through the program, although entire communities receive
the program benefits but GTO mainly benefits to
marginalized communities with special focus on Children
& Women, the poorest of the poor, the most vulnerable,
and farmers with small land holdings.
Currently,
this program is working in under-mentioned areas;
Program for Skills Enhancement of young Girls:
This program was designed
for strengthening young girls, making them earning hand
and enabling them for decision making. GTO is giving
them training on Computer Operating, Spoken English,
Beauty Parlor, Sewing & Embroidery and organizing
various other seminars and trainings on their rights.
GTO signed an agreement with Social Welfare Department
Sanatzaar and got a well constructed building, where
these project skills provision activities are going on.
Generally, people are not ready to send their daughters
for any skills because people think that they are not
interested about the jobs of their Girls. So, girls
skills and any type of investment on them is useless.
Good Thinkers Organization
field team mobilized the communities and visited door to
door to ensure maximum number of learners in the
institution. GTO advertised about the program through
the local Television Cable, Banners, posters and
newspapers. As a result, during the period of one year
in 2009 and 2010, more than 400 girls have completed
different skill courses. Most of the girls have started
their business as well. GTO provided support Rs. 30,000/
each to 10 students, who started their business with
this amount and now successfully earning.
After the completion of
each course, GTO organizes certificate distribution
ceremony, where government officials, NGOs and elected
members are invited to give certificates to the
successful students.
Community Led Health & Hygiene Promotion:
Kasur is one of the most
polluted and backward area, where health & hygiene
issues are prevailing almost in each village and in
urban areas due to waste water ponds in the villages and
huge leather and other industries in the urban areas.
Good Thinkers Organization empowered local communities
and mobilized them and launched Advocacy Campaign for
Citizens Rights. Good Thinkers Organization focused on
sanitation issues in the rural areas and established
Citizen Community Boards at village level and submitted
their Sanitation projects to the Tehsil Council, Kasur.
In the beginning, there were various problems for
Citizens Community Boards because no Government official
and elected member wanted to see the empowered and
strengthened Community. After submitting their
proposals, GTO team in collaboration with the members of
Concerned Citizen Community Boards, conducted various
meetings with Tehsil Council Elected members and
government officials and as a result, got success for
more than 8 million rupees funds for different
sanitation schemes in village Matta, Raja Jung, Hundal,
Mustafaabad and in City Kasur.
Construction of Household Latrines in Rural Kasur:
Another big issue, which is
directly affecting the girls and children, is
unavailability of household latrines in the rural areas.
Actually, women always prefer to go to the agriculture
fields for toilet purpose in the darkness, when they
feel that men are not present there. But at the time of
pregnancy or immediately after child delivery, it
becomes very hard for a women to go out of the house for
toilet. Young girls always feel fear in their minds,
when they go out for toilet purpose. GTO conducted a
survey in different rural areas and observed that GTO
supported communities and constructed 55 Latrines in the
houses and in 2 Government Schools with the financial
support of AusAid (DAP).
Due to unavailability of
health facilities in most of the rural areas and
unawareness about the health & Hygiene issues among the
local residents, GTO organizes health camps and
awareness sessions.
Promoting Girls Education in Rural Kasur:
In various rural areas, no
girls school exist. Male dominated and conservative
society did not want to educate their girls because most
of the people think that the education of girl is not
beneficial for them. If they will spend some money on
the education on their Son, they will get its return.
So, to change the mentality of the residents and educate
the girls, GTO started non-formal schools for girls in
different rural areas of Kasur, where 389 girls are
getting education.
Adult Literacy for Women:
The local traditions and
other Gender Biased behavior discourages female
education and considers it quite useless due to which
literacy rate, especially among women is less than 36%.
As a mother’s lap is the first institute for learning,
Good Thinkers specially focuses to enhance the literacy
rate in female population. GTO started Adult Literacy
Project for women, where todate 2256 women between the
ages of 13 to 40 years completed their literacy course.
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