Message from the Chairman
2017 was an unforgettable year for Aman Foundation. Due to the hard work of Aman’s team and the generous support of partners, we reached over 1 million beneficiaries this year! I would like to thank all our supporters for their continued commitment to our collective vision of fostering social and economic equality for all.
Over this past year, we forged powerful collaborations to scale our impact and transform more lives. Aman Ghar joined forces with Saylani Welfare International Trust to scale our nutritious school meals program to combat child hunger and malnutrition. MASHAL, a program that we had incubated, became an independent entity (through a merger with Basic Needs Pakistan) to increase critical mental health services across the nation. The Sindh People’s Ambulance Service was launched to expand our ambulance services to other parts of Sindh.
We developed innovative programs to further our commitment to women’s empowerment. PKR 105 million came into Pakistan for women’s economic empowerment on the back of Aman’s credibility in delivering impact, and Subh-e-Kiran (Aman Foundation’s program in partnership with British Asian Trust and Department for International Development) was launched to enhance the economic potential of thousands of young women. The Training and Reading for Adolescents in Need (TRAIN) Project, in collaboration with USAID, successfully graduated 150+ adolescent girls.
We convened key stakeholders at events to shed light on pressing socioeconomic challenges in Pakistan. Aman Tech’s first-ever industry-wide technical skills career fair was a resounding success and was an important step towards bringing Vocational Training to the forefront of the national agenda. The Pakistan @70 Summit in collaboration with the London School of Economics – South Asia Center, fostered debates on combatting some of Pakistan’s key development challenges. The Sukh Initiative organized comprehensive seminars to share best practices to improve access to family planning, across the nation.
Aman Tech was also the recipient of the prestigious International Centre of the Year 2017 award, by City & Guilds at the South Asia Centre of Excellence in Sri Lanka. Additionally, Aman Foundation also received the Social Entrepreneur of the Year award, by the Schwab Foundation at the World Economic Forum.
None of these successes would have been possible without the passion and dedication of our Aman team and the unwavering commitment of our supporters. While we ended 2017 on a strong note, our collective journey is far from over, and ten years later, Aman Foundation’s vision remains as relevant as ever. There are still many lives at risk every day and millions more that could use our support. As we mark Aman Foundation’s 10-year anniversary, we have planned an ambitious agenda for the upcoming years. I am confident that if we continue to work together and get the support of people like yourselves, we can and will make our vision a reality.
Thank you.
Fayeeza Naqvi
Co-Founder & Chair,
The Aman Foundation
Message from the CEO
Dear Friends of Aman,Happy New Year and welcome to another edition of Shanakht! As Aman Foundation completes 10 years of transforming lives, we thank you for your continuous support and encouragement.
Some very exciting things have been happening at Aman; partnerships with like-minded organizations and individuals, 2000+ graduates in the year from our vocational training programs finding success in their careers, and Aman Ambulances saving 100,000+ lives. But most of all, more thought leadership initiatives have taken shape which are redefining the noble cause of transforming lives of our fellow citizens. Read all about it in this quarter’s Shanakht and help us in scaling our impact, even more, this year!
Subh-e-Kiran – Empowering Women!
Aman Foundation has recently launched Subh-e-Kiran, a women economic empowerment program funded by the British Asian Trust and DFID. Subh-e-Kiran aims to improve economic conditions of marginalized women by increasing access to, physical and financial assets. Women, from underserved communities across Karachi, will go through a 4-month training program of vocational training, life skills and exposure to employment opportunities. This will eventually contribute to an improvement in their earning potential, thereby leading to empowerment.
Over its 3 year lifecycle, Subh-e-Kiran will impact 1,920 marginalized women beneficiaries. To impart the training, Aman Foundation has partnered with three of Karachi’s leading vocational training providers, namely Aman Institute for Vocational Training (AIVT), Charter for Compassion (CFC) and the Memon Industrial & Technical Institute (MITI). For the initial cycles of the program, women are being taught beautician, stitching and computer literacy courses. The selected courses are expected to be easy to learn with good earning potential, leading to self-employment or formal and informal job options. As Subh-e-Kiran progresses, the course offerings will be tweaked based on learnings with a view to introducing more non-conventional and innovative courses.
The proposed program will add value to the human capital of Pakistan through a dedicated skills development and economic empowerment effort that will yield increased women participation in the workforce and increased household incomes. This will also contribute toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal 5 – Achieve gender equality and empower women and girls in Pakistan.
Creating partnerships beyond organizational boundaries
The war against hunger and malnutrition cannot be won alone. Child hunger is a critical issue in Pakistan that risks the physical and mental development of our youth, the lives of their families and the nation’s collective future. Aman’s vision of transforming lives originated from Aman Ghar. In a recent agreement, Aman Ghar and Saylani Welfare International Trust decided to combine their efforts towards feeding the underserved of Pakistan. Aman created an alliance with Saylani, a like-minded organization so that our respective capabilities can synergize and together we can eradicate hunger beyond our respective organizational boundaries.
During the year 2008, in the corner of a custom-built kitchen in Khuda Ki Basti, the first nutritious free-of-cost meal under the name Aman Ghar School Meal Program was created. Since that day, the Aman Ghar initiative has provided over 4 million meals to primary school children in one of Karachi’s most impoverished communities.
Functioning along the same spectrum is Saylani, a leading development organization that runs several food assistance programs and serves over 125,000 meals daily through various stations across Pakistan.
With Saylani’s national outreach capacity and the continued support of Aman Foundation, the Aman Ghar model can be expanded across Pakistan and give hundreds of thousands of children access to nutritious meals. Within three months of the partnership, the number of free meals has increased from 3,500 to 4,500 per day.
