Read Foundation is constantly striving to establish a state-of-the-art school of excellence for talented children identified across all its educational institutions. This dream of ours has yet to be materialized. In the meantime, we have been providing financial assistance (tuition fee and boarding) to students pursuing professional education through envisaging a “professional-education support project” with the help of some caring individuals and groups.

A total of thirteen talented students interested in varied disciplines, such as medicines, engineering, agriculture and dentistry etc. were provided with required scholarships. Rampant poverty hinders talented children to excel in life, whereas the Read Foundation has very limited resources to help such students. In accordance with a recent survey, thousands of such talented children are still waiting for some kind of financial help to afford formal education. Read Foundation seeks your support to alleviate helplessness and bring back smiles on the faces of deserving students.

RATIONALE FOR CURRENCY-BASED VARIATION

The educational cost of each orphan varies based on age, build, gender, schooling level, and institution type, quality of education, tuition fee rate and the nature of allied provisions as well as the overall economic condition of the country. The lowest average cost of a male student of class/grade III amounts to PKR 9000 while the cost of a girl student at higher secondary boarding school level reaches PKR36’000. The paying capacity of average Pakistanis, in relation to per capita income, is so low that they cannot be expected to meet the actual cost of each orphan student. There are many individual donors who are extremely keen to participate in our educational program but the affordability aspect forces them to pay rupees 250 to 600 per month. Read Foundation, therefore, created a pool of funds, including zakat (obligatory charity on Muslims if they earn more than a certain amount) and sadaqat (voluntary charity), for addressing the overall educational needs of all orphan students. Through exhaustive consultations, precedents and parallel practices, the sponsorship amounts for other countries were fixed. The most basic package that Read Foundation provides to orphan students includes: uniform (summer and winter clothing); shoes, socks, school bags, stationery, text books and tuition fee that varies school to school and class to class. Almost all such students are day scholars and they live either with their mothers or relatives (guardians) save the girls students studying in high and higher secondary schools with boarding and lodging facilities. Read Foundation provides all required educational supplies and pays tuition fee to respective schools from the day one as soon as an orphan enrolls in a respective school, whereas, it takes a while to get them sponsored by individual or corporate sponsors. The pooling of funds enables the organization to cater their needs prior to securing sponsorships.