Pakistan is highly exposed to climate-induced disasters, especially floods and it is evidenced that educational establishments have been disproportionately hard-hit by raging waters during such calamities. In Pakistan, school safety and preparedness is still a choice, rather than a mandatory requirement. There is a dire need to maintain the environment in and around school property so as to minimize the impacts of floods and to have the mechanisms in place…

Seven-year-old Sumaira was a normal child at the time of her birth. After couple of years of her birth, she started developing some hearing problems, which resulted in permanent loss of hearing. Hearing loss is a combination of loss of volume (measured in decibels) and loss of pitch, or frequency (measured in Hertz). Her father, Abdul Wahid resident of the village Jogain, District Peshawar, was a labourer and his poor…

Physically-challenged 12-year-old Abdullah was enrolled in Grade-VI in Govt High School Charsadda Khas, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. As he was physically-challenged, it was somehow easy for him to attend the classes on the ground floor while he a primary grade student. After his promotion to the Grade-VI, his classroom was shifted to the first floor and walking upstairs to attending the class became very difficult for Abdullah. However, Abdullah continued to…

Visual impairment, although it can occur at birth, it is not always present from childbirth. Visual impairment can be caused by several traumatic events or diseases that affect the eye sight of a person. Glaucoma (damage optic nerve), macular degeneration (destruction of eye parts which disables a person to view), cataracts (cloudy vision), lazy eye (hindrances in vision), optic neuritis (eye inflammation leading to permanent or temporary vision loss), retinitis…

Eyesight is one of the most precious gifts of Allah to the mankind because it (eyesight) plays a pivotal role in our day to day lives. Our daily activities depend heavily on our eyesight. However, there are many people among us who have impaired vision and they suffer a lot due to this disability. During the school eye programme, CHEF International identified a number students enrolled in Government Girls Primary…

The psycho-social health approach is developed for helping in situations of trauma and stress. It includes an action frame, mechanisms and different activities that project people in distress and difficult situations and provides them with positive human relations helping to restore their sense of self-respect and ability to overcome anxiety and despite. The specific objectives of psycho-social heath programs are to reduce the impact stress and trauma has on the…

Having Muscular Dystrophy, nine years old Asad Jan was enrolled in Government Prmary School, Shakar Dhand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. His disability became one of the major hindrances in his quest for education as his classmates would target his disability in routine conversation. “My school and classfellows would always taunt me about my disability,” says Asad Jan, adding that the village children too would pinpoint his disability whether they were playing…