DIL Khairpur Schools 1

DIL began working with the Naz Old Boys Welfare Association (NOWA) in 2001, making this one of DIL’s longest-running projects.  The DIL-NOWA schools have provided rich experience for other project partners to learn from.

Khairpur, a land of meticulously lined date palms and vast cotton fields, is situated 450 km north of Karachi and shares a border with India to its east.  In the rural areas, only 53% of children attend primary school and only 48% of children older than 10 are literate.  The average literacy rate for males is 65% and only 25% for females.

NOWA

Naz High School Old Boys Welfare Trust (NOWA), a leading Khairpur-based non-profit, voluntary organization, was established and registered in 1981 as a non-governmental organization (NGO) to improve the education sector in Khairpur. NOWA was founded by a group of dedicated professionals - alumni of Naz Old Boys High School in Khairpur. Apart from the NOWA Pirbhat DIL Project, NOWA is involved in running a private English-medium school and has recently finished a formal education fellowship program for the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF).

In 1996, the Non-governmental Organization Resource Center (NGORC) in Karachi sought the assistance of NOWA to scale up, monitor and strengthen community efforts in the education sector. The assistance of a mid-level organization such as NOWA was deemed necessary to engage in continuous capacity building of local organizations and schools.

NOWA has successfully mobilized local Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) in Khairpur to establish easily accessible schools for girls in far-flung villages. CBO members help select local teachers, motivate the communities to enroll and register students, and are responsible for the day-to-day running of the schools.

DIL-NOWA SCHOOLS