ALIF AILAAN UPDATE August 2014 August at Alif Ailaan

• Bringing communities together for out-of-school children • Supporting activities to promote education at the local level • Mobilising demand for education • Celebrating Independence Day • Independence Day campaign on social media • Commemorating August 14 with parents, teachers and children from marginalised communities • Assisting the Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform • Using data and evidence to inform the discourse • Becoming the data source of record • Examining the effects of nutrition on learning

MID-YEAR ENROLMENT Bringing communities together for out-of-school children

Our education activists worked with communities and local leaders to get more children into school. They held community sessions and planning meetings with parents, politicians and students to develop enrolment strategies that are locally relevant.

Jamshoro, Sindh: Alif Ailaan education activist engages mothers in planning for the enrolment drive (left), Mothers pledging their commitment to girls education

Swat, : A meeting hosted between Parents Union and District Education Officers

Gujranwala, Punjab: Alif Ailaan campaign manager briefing Loralai, Balochistan: Parents (left) and students (right) discussing engagement strategies to political representatives on enrolment plan effectively campaign for transparency in education budget MID-YEAR ENROLMENT

Supporting activities to promote education at the local level

We hosted and supported youth and enrolment-focused seminars to strengthen the voice of civil society (Above, from left) Youth Summer Camp, Muzaffarabad; International Youth Day, organisations working for education. Faisalabad; (below) Education and Training Seminar, Haripur; Enrolment Seminar, Jhang

Southern Punjab Education Expo, Rahim Yar Khan SUCCESS STORY

Making progress in Azad Jammu and Kashmir “Alif Ailaan is working across AJK, helping the In partnership with the Girls Education Committee Dadyal, a Mirpur-based NGO, state government to we launched the ‘Taleemi Dastak’ campaign. This initiative is designed to address the unique develop ownership among community leaders, politicians and teachers for education reform, and to help them develop ways to find solutions to local challenges of providing problems. education to every Kashmiri child. Unlike The launch, held on August 24, was attended by AJK Acting Prime Minister many areas of , Chaudhary Yaseen and AJK Education Minister Mian Abdul Waheed. During the we have a difficult terrain. event, a grant of 3 million rupees was announced for the construction of five Reaching out to people dysfunctional schools in Mirpur District. living in remote villages in mountainous areas is very difficult. But Alif Ailaan’s activists are taking that message to communities.”

— Mian Abdul Waheed, AJK Education Minister

Clockwise from top left: AJK Acting Prime Minister Chaudhary Yaseen, AJK Education Minister Mian Abdul Wahid, Minister for AKLAS Wajid Rehman, AJK Minister for Zakat and Auqaf Afsar Shahid, Alif Ailaan Civil Society Campaign Manager and participants at the launch of the Taleemi Dastak campaign; AJK Acting Prime Minister and Education Minister with cabinet ministers celebrating the grant announcement; Teachers, students and members of civil society organisations at the launch RSPN Mobilising demand for education Our partners, the Rural Support Programmes Network, began the first round of project activities in 88 union councils across the country. Key initiatives launched include dialogues with local support organisations (LSOs), training of project leads, orientation meetings for LSO general body members and household data collection.

Clockwise from top left: LSO members at an orientation session (Bahawalpur); LSO data collectors conducting a household survey (Rajanpur); training project leads on effective form filling (Bahawalpur); LSO orientation (Tharparkar); Orientation session (Dera Ghazi Khan) AUGUST 14

Celebrating Independence Day

To commemorate Independence Day, we are ran a billboard campaign in featuring quotes about education from Pakistan’s founding fathers and leaders of the Independence movement.

We used this as an opportunity to engage with civic agencies and the corporate sector, receiving support from the Capital Development Authority and the Pakistan Telecommunications Company Ltd. The billboards were displayed at major intersections across Islamabad free of cost. AUGUST 14

Independence Day campaign on social media

We launched a coordinated campaign on social media with a series of visual posts featuring Facebook some of our greatest thinkers and doers. The campaign, which ran from August 13-27, • 58,246 new fans received an overwhelming positive response from our fans and followers. As a result, we • Posts received more than gained more than 58,000 fans on Facebook and almost 200 Twitter followers. 40,000 likes and 3,500 shares • Over 161,000 users engaged

Twitter • 196 new followers • Posts received 378 retweets • More than 150 mentions AUGUST 14

Commemorating August 14 with parents, teachers and children from marginalised communities Multan: A rally for better nutrition and education was attended by more than 1000 teachers, education officers and community members On August 14, our education activists in Kohat and including slum children. Strategies to increase enrolment and Multan celebrated independence day with members awareness about nutrition were discussed. Teachers present at the of their communities. event pledged support to Alif Ailaan in upcoming enrolment drives. Our education activist also visited slum-dwelling communities to persuade them to send their children to school.

Kohat: Iqbal Fana, ex-MPA led the rally attended by parents, civil society organisations and influential community leaders. In his speech he emphasised the need to enrol out-of-school children of Kohat in schools and urged the community to make 100 percent enrolment their top priority. VISION 2025

Assisting the Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform Federal Minister of Planning, Development and Reform Prof. Ahsan Iqbal requested support from Alif Ailaan’s social media and political advocacy teams for the release of the Pakistan Vision 2025 document. We helped the Ministry to develop a vision for education, prepared infographics illustrating the seven ‘pillars’ of the strategy and supported their social media team before and during the launch event on August 11. The event was attended by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. MEDIA

Using data and evidence to inform the discourse

We deepened our engagement with the media, providing leads on education stories of national interest, and providing specific data and evidence for journalists to use in their reports.

Our data used A field visit we facilitated to by the Express Shaheed Benazirabad Tribune inspired an in-depth editorial in Dawn on the Talking about education reform state of education in Sindh.

‘Right to education denied’ – Dawn (Aug 18) Link: http://goo.gl/lHMcVx

Our education activists participated in a number of radio talk shows to discuss A Daily Times opinion piece published August 3 refers to our estimate of the education issues at the local level: number of out-of-school children and our data on ghost schools in Pakistan • Roz FM 90, Mirpur (Aug 8) • Voice of America Dewa Radio (Aug 9) • Pakhtunkhwa Radio FM 92.2 (Aug 22)

Print media highlights • Education: the major problem in Pakistan – Pakistan Today (Aug 15): http://goo.gl/LsBgfT • Schools with no students, students without school, Dawn (Aug 15): Andleeb Abbas Link: http://goo.gl/UrQGKL http://goo.gl/5bbM0f DATA AND EVIDENCE Becoming the data source of record Punjab CM refers to the District Rankings Our emphasis on using data and evidence in our engagement with politicians has begun to reap results, with prominent national political leaders citing our statistics on education. Debating the state of education using our data

The talk show Bottom Line with Absar Alam on Aaj News (Aug 1) used our education fact sheet as the basis for a substantive debate on the state of education in Pakistan. The show featured Federal Minister for Education and Trainings Muhammad Baligh-ur- Rehman, KP Education Minister Atif Khan and columnist Dr. Atta-ur- Rehman.

On August 8, in a special interview with Reham Khan for PTV World, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif drew a comparison between the state of education in his province and Khyber

Pakhtunkhwa, using data from the Alif Ailaan Pakistan District Education Rankings 2014.

Watch the interview here: http://goo.gl/g8bMYL (23:50 mins) Watch the discussion here: http://goo.gl/F1tcT9 (32:55 mins) NUTRITION AND LEARNING

Examining the effects of nutrition on learning

In the days immediately after Eid, we ran a social media campaign to highlight the critical role that nutrition plays in learning.