Welcome to the United Nations
“It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.” – Mother Teresa
Everyone deserves a day off. Not just a day off from work, but from the stresses of everyday life and the worries of tomorrow. On these special occasions, men, women and children wear their best and spend time with family. They eat good food and they give and receive gifts. It’s an essential part of the human experience to celebrate togetherness on special days. Days such as Eid for Muslims, Christmas or Easter for Christians, Diwali or Holi for Hindus, and other days that call for celebration hold great significance in peoples’ hearts. Unfortunately, a large segment of society is denied this basic experience. These occasions can pass them by like any ordinary, unremarkable day.
Talented Girl Students Trust (TGST) recognises that a sizable segment of society in Pakistan does not have the means to participate in these celebrations. Apart from charity in the form of cash and basic necessities, there is a need for some donations to be received in the form of gifts to spread joy and preserve dignity, enabling people to be included in festivities along with the rest of society. There have been cases in the past where destitute children have committed suicide because their parents could not afford to include them in celebrations. To this end, TGST has undertaken a special programme of distributing new clothes and shoes to poor families, particularly to children, ahead of the two Eid days each year.
Our unique programme was implemented with the financial support of the INFAQ Foundation. It involved the purchase of a variety of brand-new clothes and shoes – kurtas, kameezes, shalwaars, and khussas – for free distribution to women and children living in the lowest economic quintile who are typically found in shanty localities. Stretching our resources, we started supplying Eid gifts to the inmates of Quetta prison in Baluchistan as well. To more efficiently bear the costs of the clothing while still increasing the benefits of the programme, TGST has encouraged women to learn skills such as sewing, cutting and knitting in our handicraft centre in Rawalpindi to produce these clothes. This skills training part of the programme has generated employment and has become a source of income for these vulnerable families.
The TGST programme has delivered smiles to over 1000 families on Eid days every year in designated areas of Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Peshawar, Faisalabad and Quetta. This programme helps to achieve SDG 1 “No Poverty,” SDG 8 “Decent Work and Economic Growth” and SDG 10 “Reduced Inequality.” Our efforts have enabled the poorest families, for a few days, to feel included with the rest of society on these days of festivity. At the same time, it has encouraged our female workforce to exhibit their creativity, produce low-cost and attractive clothing and generate income for their families.
There are some lessons to be drawn from our experience. Firstly, the smiles tell the story. Charities are normally focused on providing bare essentials; the typical image that comes to mind is that of sacks of wheat and used clothes. Such charity will always be needed and welcome, and it cannot be maligned. However, while old clothes will succeed in keeping people warm, worn out clothing will not instill them with feelings of dignity, respect or inclusion. That is the main difference in our programme: the recipients of our gifts display gratifying smiles because they are treated with dignity and respect.
Secondly, the “backward-linkage” of charity can be an important lesson for other social welfare programmes. An arrangement where the suppliers of the distributed items are themselves are themselves the recipients and consumers of these products is a great lesson for sustainability practices. It allows a programme like this to produce results much more effectively. Therefore, instead of seeking out existing vendors, charitable organizations should create employment opportunities and establish their own vendors within the vulnerable communities they are working on to help.
Did our programme alleviate poverty or raise anybody’s standard of living? Did it provide a permanent solution to people’s problems? Certainly it did not. But it ensured, at least for a short while, that the youth and families of the most vulnerable communities felt included.