“we have a lot of ideas in our head, but we

don’t know how to talk about them and so we don’t get job offers.”

“Life is going a bit tough… It’s been a year that my mother passed away and since then I am fighting with depression and loneliness… Your lecture boosted me a lot to see things in a

positive way and try not to stick to negative things. Instead of sticking negative things I try to add some positive meanings to the incidents of life. I remember your examples, that was the

most motivating factor for me.”

“The session was superb and I definitely got the most

from the videos, but it would be good to show more

Pakistanis” .  

During  our  ini*al  research,  we  believed  that  there  was  tremendous  opportunity  for  us  to  provide  so;  skills  training  for  students  in  technical/voca*onal  training  programs.  Throughout  the  country,  there  are  hundreds  of  hard  skills  training  centers,  however,  less  than  10%  of  them  are  teaching  so;  skills.  Employers  have  iden*fied  this  as  a  major  gap  and  the  government  is  now  planning  to  invest  heavily  in  this  type  of  training.      Addi*onally,  the  opportunity  to  make  an  impact  here  is  significant,  given  that  nearly  80%  of  these  students  dropped  out  of  school  and  earn  less  than  20,000  PKR  a  month.      Given  the  significance  of  this  opportunity,  Amal  ran  a  one-­‐month  (40  hour)  pilot  with  a  small  group  of  students  at  Descon  Training  Ins*tute,  in  order  to  determine  if  we  can  enhance  their  so;  skills.  Unfortunately,  we  discovered  that  weren’t  able  to  achieve  the  type  of  impact  that  we  wanted,  primarily  for  the  following  reasons:  

As  a  result,  we  realized  that  we  need  to  focus  on  industries  and  student  popula*ons  where  we  can  make  the  most  difference,  and  then  eventually  incorporate  those  lessons  and  successes  in  order  to  reach  more  marginalized  communi*es,  such  as  voca*onal  students.  

-­‐  Language  barrier:  we  needed  to  transliterate  the  majority  of  our  content  into  Urdu  and  Punjabi,  and  some  of  the  impact  was  diminished  as  a  result  

-­‐  Industry  knowledge:  given  that  we  don’t  have  experience  recrui*ng  for  technical/voca*onal  skills,  it  has  been  difficult  finding  jobs  for  our  students    

-­‐  Timing:  Due  to  *ming  constraints,  Descon  wanted  to  complete  the  program  in  40  hours;  given  that  only  20%  of  our  students  studied  beyond  8th  grade,  however,  we  believed  this  was  not  adequate  *me  to  move  the  needle.    

Try to love and live the questions now. Perhaps then you will

gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers.

- RM Rilke -