SDG 1: No Poverty

Introduction

Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology, is a prominent educational institution in Pakistan, contributing to SDG – 1 through its educational and research programs. Here’s a brief description of the commitments and efforts the GIK Institute in the context of ending poverty:

Quality Education: The GIK Institute committed to providing high-quality education and skill development programs to students, especially in fields like engineering, sciences, and technology. By equipping students with the knowledge and skills they need to excel in these areas, the institute help reduce poverty by increasing employability and income-earning potential.

Research and Innovation: Through its research initiatives, the GIK Institute focus on projects and studies that have a direct impact on poverty reduction. This includes research on sustainable technologies, and other areas relevant to the economic development of impoverished communities.

Community Outreach: The GIK Institute engaged in community outreach programs to support nearby underserved communities. This involve providing entrepreneurial support to help residents improve their livelihoods and overall well-being.

Scholarships and Financial Aid: The institute established scholarship and financial aid programs to ensure that deserving students from disadvantaged backgrounds have access to quality education. This helps in breaking the cycle of poverty by providing opportunities for those who might not have had access otherwise.

Collaboration and Partnerships: The GIK Institute collaborate with governmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as industry partners, to work on poverty alleviation projects. By joining forces with other stakeholders, the institute have a more significant impact on addressing poverty at various levels.

Sustainable Practices: The institute promotes and implemented sustainable practices within its campus and academic programs. By educating students on sustainability and environmental responsibility, it contributes to poverty reduction in the long term by addressing environmental issues that often disproportionately affect impoverished communities.

Social Entrepreneurship Initiatives: Encouraging and supporting social entrepreneurship programs is another way by the GIK Institute to contribute to poverty reduction. These initiatives empower students to develop innovative solutions to social challenges while creating economic opportunities.

Brief description of activities

• Kishware Haseen Shaad Baad (KHSB)
  
• There is no greater joy than seeing those around you rise up to their full potential. Project Topi under the Student Affairs Department organized an event Kishware Haseen Shaad Baad (KHSB). Every year, Project Topi arranges KHSB with the sole aim of the growth of the underprivileged children. Our carefully curated modules bring out their talents and allows them to shine as they have never before.We are proud to announce the successful completion of KHSB. This year we were able to reach out to 60+ school students from vastly different backgrounds and provide them a platform to showcase their artistic and debating skills. Social awareness presentations were also given where the children participated enthusiastically. We received an overwhelming response from these talented children, and they rose up beyond expectations. Our heartfelt thanks to the schools and parents who sent their children to us and to our generous donors who keep on making these events possible for us. But most of all to the remarkable children of Topi.

• Clothes Donation Drive at GIK institute
  Project Topi is GIK’s premier welfare society and also the sole welfare society. Project Topi helps deserving people inside and outside GIK in various cases. One such way is the clothes donation drive. Clothes Donation Drive is a successful and impactful module of Project Topi that is aimed to provide clothes to well-deserved lower staff here at GIK Institute in the bone-chilling winters we have here in Topi. In this regard a door-to-door campaigns was conducted on December 8 2021 in all hostels gathering unused, no longer needed clothes by the students, which are then sanitized, and cleansed through a laundry process. The Clothes Donation drive was conducted by Project Topi on December 21 2021, the clothes were then displayed in mess dining halls and distributed to the needy people.
• Project Topi raised donations for needy students
  A GIK Institute student from a humble background needed to take one important course to complete his degree. He had been studying on scholarship but as summer courses are not included in the scholarship, it was difficult for him to manage his finances for it. He was married with three children and had no other source of income. Project Topi raised donations via social media platform and successfully closed the case with enough donations for student to continue with his education.
• Alumni Association Financial Assistance Program
  Support of need-based financial assistance has been the key element of GIKI Alumni Association goals and objectives to enable students at GIK Institute to fulfill their dreams. Since inception in 2003, GIKI Alumni Association has supported more than 200+ students to fulfill their dreams. Some key performance indicators are mentioned below from the last three years.

• Project Topi Funds donations stats 2021

Support people of Topi
Project Topi, alongside its bucket of modules and programs, also has a very active miscellaneous problem and case handling system. Project Topi is an organization that works all year round and has a lasting impact in Topi and out of Topi. It takes various cases of people of Topi and does its best to help them I every way possible.
Most people in Topi have mud houses, which are always on the verge of destruction due to the heavy rains. Project Topi helps them financially to build a safe shelter for them through the donations of generous people. Whenever there arrives a need for blood, we run a campaign to arrange the blood for the person in need in the minimum time possible.
We also arrange funds for various medical cases such as kidney transplants, chemotherapy, bone fractures etc. Alongside our official modules and programs, Project Topi handles a whole lot of miscellaneous cases, and it does it across Pakistan. As it is common knowledge, being a completely student run and managed organization Project Topi have capacity bottlenecks. It does not have huge resources and our total strength is somewhere near 100. Despite all those resource constraints, Project Topi strives as much as it can to do good and help people who deserve it and even in limited available resources, Project Topi shows exemplary performance. This organization is transparent yet opaque. Project Topi keeps the identities of those it helps secret while those who help and donate recorded and documented in its database.

• Project Topi Flood relief Campaign in collaboration with other student societies at GIK Institute
  Due to heavy monsoon rain, most regions of Pakistan are experiencing floods. The flood has destroyed their lives and has left them without shelter and food. We here at Project Topi are working to provide flood relief aid to our fellow Pakistanis.

• Clothes donation for flood affected areas in Pakistan
  Project Topi under the Student Affairs Department is a completely student run, not-for-profit, non-government and volunteer-based organization situated in Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering in Topi, Swabi. Al-Khidmat Foundation Pakistan is one of the leading, non-profit organization, fully dedicated to humanitarian services since 1990. The services include disaster management, health services, education, orphan care, clean water, Mawakhat (interest-free loan) and other community services. The devastation caused by floods due to the current monsoon in Pakistan is still going on. Sindh, Baluchistan and South Punjab have been severely affected, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit Baltistan have also suffered massive losses. According to the data from the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), 33 million population of 81 districts have been affected. To help Pakistanis recover from such difficult times, Project Topi collaborated with Al-Khidmat Foundation for a Cloth Donation Drive and funds Donation Drive. All the clothes and donations were collected, members gathered to categorize the clothes and then send to the laundry service. After that, representatives of the Al-Khidmat Foundation visited Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute to collect the donations. The response during the drive was overwhelming, and a significant amount of donations were collected and sent to the flood victims under the supervision of Al-Khidmat Foundation.
  • Flood Donations
    
          Al-khidmat  130,000 PKR

       Akhuwat      100,000 PKR

        JDC               35,000 PKR
           ——————————–
          Total         265,000 PKR

• GIKI Alumni Campus in collaboration with The Citizen Foundation (TCF)
  GIKI alumni from some of our earliest batches took initiative to establish a #TCF primary school in Swabi, KPK Pakistan.

https://www.tcf.org.pk/schools/khyber-paktoonkhwa/giki-alumni-campus/
https://gikialumni.org/tcf-gikiaa/
How to Donate: https://gikialumni.org/how-to-donate/
The proposed site is located at Parmoli. Parmoli is an existing cluster of 3 primary and 2 secondary TCF schools. A Primary Unit consists of six class rooms from KG to V (30/ classroom) and a Secondary Unit is consisted of five class rooms from Grade VI to X (36/ classroom).
Parmoli is a thickly populated area where an existing TCF School – Shirin Sultan Dossa Campus XVII – is operating at its full capacity of 183 students since 2007. There is an increasing demand from the community for another Primary School. Therefore, TCF proposed construction of a primary school unit for build-cycle 2017-18 (academic session 2018-19) on the above-mentioned location.
The site is in a rural area with mostly low to medium income households. This location has been selected by TCF based on a strategic assessment of the area to determine “need”, as well as TCF’s operational priorities. The region survey assessment considers existing number of schools, number of children of school going age, poverty level, site suitability and land assessment.

Fruit-seller’s son, TCF alumnus graduates from GIKI
In a small, mud-brick house of Khuda ki Basti, a slum in Karachi, the power is out, mosquitos are buzzing around, and rainwater is seeping in through the roof. Muhammad Ahmad, a fruit-seller, smiles happily as he stacks up mangoes on his pushcart and shares,
“With my earnings, it would not have been possible for me to put Asad through a good school, college and university,” shares Ahmad. He leads us to the veranda where we join his wife and children who are waiting on a charpoy. He continues, “I had to drop out of school at a young age to support my family. It is my dream to educate all my children and TCF is making it possible.”

“In our community, boys are expected to take up full-time jobs at a young age but Baba (father) encouraged me to focus on my education,” shares Asad, a TCF school and college alumnus. “When I was leaving for university, he handed me some money for my living expenses which he had been saving to get our roof fixed. When I hesitated, he told me: The repairing of our home can wait but this opportunity might not come again.”
Asad, who graduated from the prestigious Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology, is ready to begin his first job at a software company. Two of his younger siblings, Saad and Sadia, are currently first-year students at TCF College while his two other sisters, Haadiya and Tooba are studying in Classes 9 and 7 at the TCF school in their community – all of whom have big dreams of their own!
6 TCF Alumni Conferred Degrees At GIKI Convocation 2022!
Our alumni have made us proud yet again! We are thrilled to share that 6 TCF alumni were recently awarded degrees at the Convocation of Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology (GIKI), a renowned university in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
This remarkable feat is a testament to the hard work of these students, their parents and teachers, and of course, your unwavering support. Each one of these alumni has a unique story of struggle, perseverance and overcoming extraordinary odds to get to this point. It reminds us that every child holds the potential for greatness if given the right opportunity. On this momentous occasion, let’s hear what some of our alumni have to say as they begin this transitional moment of their lives.