Khubaib Foundation Provides a Home for Orphans, Widows

MANSEHRA—After the earthquake, many children who were left parentless were adopted into their extended families. Widows began living with their parents or other relatives. But not everyone was welcomed with open arms, and many orphans and widows were reduced to poster figures for receiving aid money.

Last fall, the Khubaib Foundation, a Turkey-based relief organization, liaised with the Pakistani government to create temporary shelters for orphans in Mansehra and Muzaffarabad. The plan was to bring the children to Islamabad and either find them homes or build an orphanage. But, through the resistance of the local community, the children were not shifted to Islamabad and still reside in the shelters today.

In Mansehra, a boarding school has been set up for 321 such orphans and 20 widows in April. Mansehra is a commercial trade hub for villagers, who are able to come visit the children when they go to the city. The orphans are currently living and studying in tents inside a large guarded field.

“Our biggest problem is a lack of space,” said Major Fayyaz Akbar, project manager of the Mansehra site. “We are working with the government to find a large plot of land in Mansehra were we can build a permanent shelter and school for the children.”

The children are taught based on a New Century education system, developed by a group of Karachi-based NGOs. The Montessori-style classrooms emphasize writing skills and reading comprehension instead of simple memorization. The widows are also provided reading skills and vocational training.

“In their villages, the children were not educated properly. Their parents, busy with their own work, didn’t pay much attention to the children’s studies,” said Akbar. “Now we have brought them to a point where they can even skip a class and enter the next grade.”

But the more notable accomplishment of the Khubaib Foundation is the cleanliness, order, and respect with which the children and widows are living. Other tent villages are covered with trash, but the orphanage is clean and the children are provided food and medical attention regularly.

The children of the Khubaib foundation are receiving education and attention today that would have been unimaginable for them prior to the earthquake. Among the sadness and frustration of earthquake evacuees, the orphanage provides a much needed glimmer of hope.