Mega Project Blog 2 — The Story So Far:

According to the most recent data from the International Labor Organization, the world has made the least progress in protecting two of the most at-risk populations: children between the ages of five and 11, and young girls.

As the contemporary form of slavery continues to haunt such kids. Unfortunately, we individually cannot sustain a macro-level impact except that we can create a ray of hope for at least some kids who are willing to get rid of being enslaved and help them in breaking the chains of child labor. Our Mega Circle at Amal Academy thus initiated this “Child Labor Relief Program” (CLRP) focusing primarily on providing sustainable academic and primary health care assistance to such kids who are willing to get an education and get rid of this slavery in the shape of unwanted labor.

Recent Activities & Impact:

In the past couple of weeks, we had each member of our group mobilized to attract sustainable donors and we’ve managed to accomplish 48+ by far. In the previous two weeks we performed the following activities:

Virtual Coordination:

Arranged a few meetings on Zoom as well as actively engaging each other on our WhatsApp group. We interacted to discuss numerous challenges that we were facing particularly in convincing sustainable donors. A detailed presentation was provided by Hasnain and Amna on our modified action plan and we brainstormed for new solutions to address our cause.

Field Activities (involving each group member):

Each member was assigned to carefully sign up at least 8 sustainable donors (48 in total) who will provide PKR 150 every month to fulfill the Academic and health care requirements of our child. For this purpose, One of our members Hasnain traveled to Jhang as well as Lahore not only to sign up for donors but the potential expansion of our social enterprise as well. Kashif, Amna, and Hasnain for this purpose collaborated in Lahore. Amna arranged a meeting of a potential referral Mr. Bukhari who carefully identified two children from Anarkali, Lahore who are fulfilling our selection criteria, and currently, the work is in progress for the admission of both kids. (Convincing their parents as well as scrutinizing their background for selection and adoption still in the phase of progression). Hasnain visited the KIPS Lahore aiming to expand our idea amongst the various top educational institutions in Lahore and with their aid, we can create an even bigger impact.

Hamid visited numerous potential donors in Gujranwala and Lahore and so did Shahbaz and Noor Fatima. And as of this Friday (October 9,2020), we’ve successfully managed to increase the targeted donors up to 48.

Social Media Impact:

Due to the pandemic, the significance of social media becomes more relevant and for this purpose, we created a platform on Instagram. We’re currently collaborating with numerous digital influencers for the purpose of awareness of our social enterprise. Hamid Jalal, Noor Fatima, and Shahbaz are actively involved in this aspect and we plan to expand our outreach to an even bigger audience as well as on different platforms in the coming weeks.

Challenges we faced and solutions to overcome them:

Mega Group Transitions:

One of the biggest challenges for us during the execution of the project was the continuous Mega Circle transitions as two fellows left this group and two new fellows (Hamid Jalal and Noor Fatima) joined this group just a few weeks earlier so this transition required a fresh beginning for the two of them and initially, we struggled to collaborate and get everyone on one page. This was tackled by an extensive detailed meeting where the entire project was revisited and presented to the new fellows.

Rejection from the Potential Donors:

One of the major challenges we faced earlier was outright rejections from potential donors. Most of them were not convinced on how we are tackling child labor through this at a macro level. Some argued that the sustainability factor is unrealistic. But that is the beauty and essence of our project i.e. it is unprecedented. It is understandable that we as students cannot create such a massive impact with such limited resources however we can initiate some impact within our capacity. And that initiative is providing at least two students with full-fledged academic support for more than a decade of their academic life which is the way forward. Despite rejections, we still managed to convince people by approaching them in an improved manner and of course with better research than we did initially.

Pandemic:

The Covid-19 pandemic is still one of the most relevant challenges we’ve in initiating this project. CLRP requires an adequate amount of physical coordination in each of its action plans (whether it be mega circle coordination or the process of identification, selection, and admission of the child), the element of physical coordination is still extremely limited in this regard.

Time Barriers:

This is arguably the most challenging mega project of this fellowship and a huge hurdle in executing is the limited time we’ve. Obviously, the entire project is a complex process and requires detail scrutinizing and background checks for sustainable implementation. The time we’ve for executing all this is relatively short and extremely challenging and we’re only tackling this hindrance with our proactive approach.

Limited Funds:

Another area of reflection for us is that our resources are extremely limited. This is one of the major challenges for any social enterprise led by some students. In order to increase our funds, we’ve decided to expand our cause in the future by creating awareness and attracting more donors by revisiting our revenue model and modify it based on our requirements.

Partial Commitments:

This aspect can also not be ignored as it is understandable that not everyone will fully commit to our cause for such a long period and the reason we intend to collaborate with CLEP Faisalabad as they will sponsor our cause in case we lose our committed donors.

Accomplishments by far:

• Managed to raise 48+ sustainable donors as a group
• Each group member has managed to raise PKR 2400 each for the first-month donation fund
• Our lump sum donation has accumulated to PKR 14,400 by far that will cover the first-month academic expenses of our adopted child
• Engaged numerous digital influencers to raise awareness for our cause
• Actively engaged with CLEP Faislabad who have agreed to collaborate with us in regard to the scrutiny of the child’s background and provision of their experts for identification in this regard
• Assigned two caretakers (one for each child) who will watch over each kid and provide a report every fortnight on the child’s status back to CLRP

Sustainability Factors:

Some of the sustainability factors that we propose for our project include the following: