This is a story about a small village called ZaheerNager, near the town of Burewala, in Punjab, Pakistan, that is going to see development work over the next 10 years in the field of schooling, education, adult literacy, vocational training, financial inclusiveness, access to capital (Microfinance) and Wifi connectivity to better the lives of the community and hopefully, put this small community on the map.
Zaheer Nagar
(Chak 521)
The first step, to build a primary school in the area has been completed.
A TCF (www.tcf.org.pk) primary school with a capacity of 180 students built at a cost
of Rs. 20 million has commenced operations on September 1st, 2020.
Construction
The school has been built through the generous donations of family, relatives and friends to honour the memory of the late Khan Bahadur Nur Muhammad (www.LifeofNM.com).
Below is a photographic journey of the school construction that started in May 2019 and was completed in March 2020. Classes remained suspended for almost 6 months due to the Covid-19 pandemic and finally commended on 1st September, 2020.
Development Plans
An aspirational 10-year plan calls for adding a secondary school followed by a vocational centre and starting Adult literacy classes. It calls providing access to capital to promote cottage type businesses.
An integral part of the plan is to introduce Microfinance lending at some stage and seed funding 20-30 small businesses to produce local goods which are in demand in the rest of the country.
Given the premise that “connectivity is productivity” the plan also includes providing free of charge access WiFi to promote access to markets and promote financial inclusiveness.
You are invited to contribute by sharing
your experience of community development.