A Father’s Dream – Islam Khana from Pehli Kiran School 2

Islam Khana’s access to free education at PKS turned her dream into reality.

Having faced poverty and hardships of life, her father was determined to provide his children with a good education but he couldn’t afford to send them to school. Now, Islam Khana is a proud alumna of PKS.

Her family belongs to Karak, KPK. Due to a lack of opportunities and extreme poverty in their native village, her family moved to Islamabad where her father worked as a daily wage laborer while his wife collected wood to sell. “Living in tough conditions had taught my father the value of education, so when I turned 5 he promised himself that even if he had to go without food for a while, he would, to ensure I attend a good school,” shares Islam Khana.

She continues, “In those days, PKS-2, located in our community, was a ray of light for us – it provided free quality education to its students and also gave us free food and uniforms. It is one of a kind school.” She graduated from PKS-2 in grade 5 and enrolled in a public school for further education. The school had prepared her well for higher studies and she credits PKS for laying a strong foundation in her, “the education given to us there had been no less than a private school’s,” she explains.

Islam Khana now has a BSc degree from Quaid-e-Azam University and wants to become a software engineer, but her family’s finances couldn’t allow that. PKS again came into her life as another ray of light and has received a scholarship from the Pehli Kiran Livelihoods Program to continue her Master’s degree, allowing her to pursue her dream. She is also very proud to be employed as a Computer Teacher in the first Pehli Kiran Computer Training Centre. She is extremely grateful for her journey thus far. She feels that given her family’s conditions and lack of opportunities for children with her background, she was lucky to have found a school like PKS that exposed her to a life that she could have only dreamt of.