Zindagi Trust : A Historic Alliance 2019
- 2023-11-22
The Zindagi Trust network of schools works to change policy to reform schools through advocacy with political leadership, government, top bureaucracy, supporting organisations, civil society and other key opinion leaders and influencers. Based on its learnings and successes, it has been effective in bringing about change to policies in school governance and child protection.
The founder of Zindagi Trust, Shahzad Roy, one of the fiercest advocates of LSBE, has championed Aahung’s curriculum and played an instrumental role in having the governments of Sindh and Balochistan commit to introducing LSBE into their curricula.
The partnership between Zindagi Trust and Aahung began in 2011 with the introduction of LSBE classes at the SMB Fatima Jinnah Government Girls School, which is under the management of Zindagi Trust. Through rigorous teachers’ trainings and refreshers and constant mentoring by Aahung, the school soon became a model for the implementation of the LSBE curriculum. It demonstrated how best to deliver the LSBE messages to students but to also create ownership of the programme among teachers and parents.
In addition to successfully taking on the challenge of teaching LSBE in a government school within a conservative community, Zindagi Trust also supported Aahung in bringing LSBE to government schools through advocacy with the government. In December 2016, when Aahung formed a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) to review Aahung’s developed content, a representative of Zindagi Trust, Ms. Shahnaz Hunzai was part of that too.
In January 2018, after the tragic rape and murder of six-year-old Zainab in Kasur, Zindagi Trust facilitated in mobilizing activists and supporters from the media industry to push for LSBE to be taught in all schools to empower children to protect themselves. Since Zindagi Trust is a great champion when it comes to LSBE promotion and is playing a critical role in advocating for the integration of LSBE in all provincial curricula, a formal MOU has been signed between Aahung and Zindagi Trust in April 2019. The purpose of this MOU is to formalize the efforts being made by Zindagi Trust and Aahung to institutionalize the teaching of LSBE in Pakistan.