ast month, the Centre for Law and Justice initiated a six-month Khushhali Fellowship Programme in partnership with the British Council; Lancaster University, UK; and Forman Christian College University, for the daughters of sanitation workers, a disadvantaged community. The stated mission of the programme is to help the community break free of barriers associated with manual sanitation work, and offer them a path to higher education and skill development.

The fellowship programme is the brainchild of Mary James Gill, who is the executive director of CLJ, a former parliamentarian and the founder of Pakistan’s first digital literacy campaign for janitors, called Sweepers are Superheroes, which has bagged her many international and national accolades.

Talking to TNS, Gill says that the programme was “developed after deep conversations with my colleague, Asif Aqeel. It was a natural extension of our campaign [Sweepers are Superheroes], and aimed at raising awareness for the dignity, safety and social protection of the community.

“Our primary focus is on how the sanitation workers can help their children break the cycle of generational poverty arising from their parents’ occupation. Our studies have shown that the children of sanitation workers face systemic discrimination by both the state and the society.”

The original model of the Khushhali Fellowship Programme targeted both genders, with greater focus on boys and men who “are more prone to structural and communal violence.” However, it was modified later to meet the criteria of the Global Partnership Grant.

“We are constantly striving to convince the development agencies to help us upscale this model to be more inclusive. Hopefully, we’ll be able to include boys soon,” says Gill.

When asked about the eligibility criteria, she says that the candidates with a minimum education level of matriculation and aged between 16 and 24 are enrolled. The participating students are selected from across Lahore. It’s a fully funded programme.

In addition to imparting English language skills and digital literacy, the fellowship aims to empower the participants with an all-round education that extends beyond curriculum, affording them soft skills and incorporating knowledge on social and politico-legal issues directly impacting their lives. Once the classes come to an end, apart from immediate job placement, the programme tries to facilitate the deserving candidates’ access to higher education.

The Centre for Public Policy and Governance is the key advising faculty that has helped shape up the programme. Talking about the fellowship, Prof Dr Saeed Shafqat, the founding director of CPPG, says, “It’s an innovative programme designed to boost confidence among the children of the marginalised, promote awareness about their rights and responsibilities and develop faith in the dignity of labour.

“The [enrolled] girls interact with other students at the FCCU. The idea is to fight social stigma and march forward with confidence in peace and harmony.”

To a query about the sustainability of the programme, Prof Dr Shafqat says, “Initiating a project is easy; sustaining it is tough. It demands support from the society, the government, the academia and philanthropists. Will that happen? It’s too soon to tell. For our part, we want to make sure it’s a sustainable project, and we can continue to create hope and improve the conditions of the vulnerable and marginalised communities.”

r Sally Cawood from Lancaster University, UK, known for her work on human geography, urban studies, critical development studies, political ecology and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), is an important member of the Khushhali Fellowship Programme. Talking about the challenges faced by the children of sanitation workers, in acquisition of education and blue-collar jobs, she says, “We see these [challenges] across the wider region — notably in India and Bangladesh. In Pakistan, much less has been done to address these barriers.”

Commenting about the project focusing only on girls, she says, “We explicitly wanted to focus on women and girls from minority communities, as they often face the ‘triple burden’ of discrimination based on gender, occupation, and caste/ religious identity. Amongst a range of challenges, this can present particular barriers to accessing further education and decent employment.”

The complete title of the project is Gendered Pathways to Prosperity: Breaking the Boundaries to Further Education and Employment Among Dalit Minorities in the Punjab. Dr Cawood explains the “Dalit” part of it: “Pakistan has its own complex history and debate in relation to the use of this term. Within the country, but also India and Bangladesh, sanitation work is and was predominantly undertaken by the Dalits, some of whom converted to Christianity, Islam or Buddhism. The British colonial period was also a key historical moment for the re-shaping and institutionalisation of caste relations across the region. This cannot be overlooked.

Assistant Professor Raheem Ul Haq, who teaches employment to the students, says, “The core objective of this course is to take these girls through a process that helps improve their employability by not only learning hard skills but also soft skills, including networking, communication, personal characteristics, critical thinking and confidence.

“An important difference in employability between a person from privileged and another from underprivileged class is the social network they have. There’s a common perception that the employment sector is very corrupt. Some people are just well connected. This helps them get jobs. Employability is a broad aspect which basically allows you to be equipped with anything and everything that supports you to be employable and stay employed in a changing economy,” he adds.

n a cozy classroom at the CPPG in FCCU, seated amidst her 29 classfellows, Arooj says she comes from a family where most people are employed as sanitary workers. Today, she hopes to fly airplanes. “During summers, as we’d lie down on our rooftop, I’d excitedly follow the path of any plane I spotted in the sky,” she says. “I’ve long dreamt of seeing the world from inside the tiny windows of a plane mid-flight.”

Asif Aqeel, an academic, researcher and faculty member of sociology at the Lahore School of Law, and the founding director of the Centre for Law and Justice, was about to enter the classroom where he’d be teaching English.

Interactive sessions with Justice Nasira Iqbal, lawyer Hamid Khan and Reham Khan, the founder of Mashoom project, which is working for street children, are also arranged for the students.

Other extra-curricular activities include a sports gala.

Reham Khan says, “We need more of such initiatives. Our minority communities, especially Christians, feel that they are condemned to take up only certain tasks in their life. Our students [at the Khushhali Fellowship Programme] are a living example of how they are no different from students from well-off families. They don’t have to assume the same roles, silently accept the derogatory words and economic conditions that their parents had to face.”

This isn’t the first time such efforts have been made for the children of sanitation workers. There have been exceptional examples in the past. Father Arnold Heredia and Mariam Vidya Sarkar have left legacies of good models of community organisation and labour unions, respectively. The first was in Karachi, and the second in Peshawar. Fr Heredia worked for the welfare of sanitation workers. In Karachi, the Basti Project was run by Idara-i-Aman-o-Insaf. Imtiaz Boota and Fr Bonnie Mendes are continuing their struggle for workers’ rights in the sanitation sector.

The Khushhali Fellowship Programme can serve as a model for the government to take a cue from and do what is needed to bring the children of the disadvantaged into the mainstream, says Peter Jacob, the Centre for Social Justice executive director.

The writer is a freelance journalist