Family Education Services Foundation (FESF)Pakistan Written by Daniel Marc, Director
Family Education Services Foundation (FESF) was started by like-minded foreign educators who had been working in Pakistan in an independent capacity since 1984. To fulfill these objectives, FESF currently administers 3 programs:
Deaf Reach - Schools and Training Centers for the Deaf in Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Lahore (and soon in Rashidabad).
Eduserve - The mandate of the Eduserve program is to strengthen the educational infrastructure by training teachers, administrators, parents and youth. Educational Development Programs: Training courses and seminars are conducted in the field of education and child development, focusing on the needs of teachers and parents of both mainstream and special needs children.
Community Services- Social uplift and assistance to improve the quality of life for those less fortunate due to disability or other personal hardship.
Demographic statistics It is estimated that about 50% of Pakistan’s growing population of 180 million is under the age of 25 of which many will never set foot inside a school.
According to recent demographics, it is estimated that upwards of 5% of the total population in Pakistan suffers some form of hearing impairment. In a nation of 180 million, that is a significant number of people – approximately 9 million - a large number of whom are children. Of these, 1.5 million children are profoundly deaf and cannot attend mainstream schools. There is therefore a great need to ensure that deaf children are given the opportunities to receive an education, and to excel in a variety of skills that will eventually enhance their abilities for employment. Education equals empowerment, and ultimately provides quality of life that enables an individual to be self sustaining.
|
Educational change There is an urgent need to improve the quality of education, and to increase the scope of teacher training programs. BrillKids learning programs are invaluable to reach this goal.
The majority of teachers receive little or no training, yet with quality input in the form of organized training courses, these teachers can achieve a higher standard of teaching ability, and more fully live up to their potential. This in turn will make a quantitative difference in the quality of education being received by the students in the care of these teachers, resulting in an improved quality of life for all of these beneficiaries.
Eduserve Training Program brings FESF trainers into needy urban and rural areas to conduct in-house training programs on site, thus reaching the maximum teachers available in a given locale. Once a training course has been conducted, a follow up program is also initiated. Additionally, these foreign trainers have many years of experience in the field of education, thus lending a high degree of professionalism and skill to the overall training program.
BrillKid’s product are innovative, engaging , capturing the children’s attention making learning a fun experience and wanting to attend school minimizing the drop out rate. BrillKids learning tools will further improve the desperate need for a quality education and further help FESF’s Deaf Reach and Eduserve program fulfill its mandate.
With Brillkids support to further professionalize Deaf Reach teaching and learning program, it’s exciting to look forward to the extent of such positive changes and impact we’ll envision to bring about in the lives of the Deaf in Pakistan, including the parents, teachers and the community at large. We’ve been able to access the reading by Felicity via YouTube and this has already inspired our married teachers who have babies/children of their own to impart the same teaching principles to their own children besides their job as teachers in Deaf Reach.
|
