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SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION
Rukut Primary School Rukut, Pakistan
$ 25,000 needed
Head south from Sarhad in the Wakhan, over the Broghil pass, down the trail and onto the road and within a relatively short distance is the village of Rukut.
“ When I first went to Rukut, there was not any school there,” said Saidullah Baig, director of CAI-Gilgit, our nonprofit partner in the region.
CAI began working with other villages in the remote northern reaches of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in 2010 and projects now include four schools, four maternal healthcare workers, and a small college.
“ In 2013 we started an informal school in Rukut, which is small village of about 20 families on the Yarkhun River,” Baig said.“ We gave them a teacher, chairs and books— everything we have given. But they have no building. The school is in open air.”
The teacher is Essa Khan, a 32-year-old local man whose illiterate parents sent him away for schooling.“ My parents were aware about importance of education, but because of fi- nancial problems, my five brothers and sister could not get education,” he said.
After he completed high school,“ because of financial problem, I could not continue my education, so I started teaching,” Khan said. He taught at two other CAI-supported schools north of his village before Baig hired him to teach in his home village.
The school has 27 students— six girls and 21 boys— and he teaches all subjects.“ Now we have kindergarten and class one, and in 2015 we start class two.”
“ The people of our village are happy to see their kids have started school,” he said.“ Our village is isolated and education is important to find the ways of connection to outside world. But still we are facing problems without building. In winter we are taking the children to somebody’ s home and in summer I am teaching in open air.”
Baig said the primary school will be, depending on the costs of material and transport,“ four or five classrooms, plus two toilets and a boundary wall. We brought some material, some wood, and they are collecting gravel and stone there while the river is low. Then after the Shandur Pass is open in April, we can deliver other materials and start construction in May.” n
12 | Footsteps CENTRAL ASIA INSTITUTE