User:Azad Foundation/sandbox

Azad Foundation

Azad Foundation is a pioneer leading organization in Pakistan for children on the streets, working in the city of Karachi since 2001. Azad Foundation holds the credit for establishing the first ever Drop-In Center (2004) and a Rehabilitation Center (2007) for the protection, rehabilitation and social reintegration of children on the streets. Throughout its conceptualization Azad played a role of Policy Maker to improve Govt. policies, to influence public opinion in favor of implementing existing laws such as the Sindh Child Act, Juvenile Justice Ordinance, Sindh Child Protection Authority Act and to organize civil society in recognizing its role in policy making. Over ten years Azad conducted a number of research, symposium, seminars, workshops and has established Pakistan’s first ever Children on the Streets Resource Center (2011) to inform policy and decision-making at government level through research and capacity-building of state actors. Azad believes in this mantra of working together with the relevant stake holders and collaborates and shares its experiences with national and international organizations and utilizes the learned experiences.

Objectives:

1-To promote a culture of research in development sector, government and academia in context of child protection, child rights, causes and underlying factors behind prevalence of Children Living and/or Working on Streets to inform policy development and programming.

2-To advocate and lobby for policy development and legislative change for budgetary allocation and government run service provision for Children Living and/or Working on Streets.

3-To address lacunas in public and private services by building capacity of government and civil society institutions and developing and introducing standard operating procedures and minimum standards for package of services to strengthen an integrated child protection system in the Pakistan.

4-To develop partnerships and linkages with all local, national, regional and international bodies, networks and platforms of advocacy to i) present situation of Children Living and/or Working on Streets in Pakistan and ii) represent Pakistan in global advocacy campaign for Children Living and/or Working on Streets.

5-To nurture relationships with national and international corporates to extend support to Children Living and/or Working on Streets especially in terms of information and communication to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

6-To develop an institution to fulfill research, knowledge-base, capacity building and resource library needs of public and private sector.

7-To design, implement, promote and support grass-root interventions ranging from outreach protection and rehabilitation centers to transit care centers including sports for development for rehabilitation and social reintegration of Children Living and/or Working on Streets in Pakistan.

8-To establish facilities for education and healthcare for Children Living and/or Working on Streets.

9-To develop and utilize strategy and tools of communication for development to promote the rights of children in vulnerable communities through grass root advocacy campaigns.

Azad Foundation beliefs & values:

Azad Foundation envisions a world where the rights of all children are realized, where every child is protected from violence, exploitation and abuse through State mechanisms and where children no longer have to live or work on streets.

Its stated mission is: To improve the well-being and self-esteem of alienated and excluded street children, through unconditional positive support, whenever and wherever necessary; with the view to reintegrate street children with their family and society. It shall ensure and establish that every street child is enabled to contribute to the structure of society in the sense of harmony, peace and socially integrated living.

History:

Primarily Azad was a group of students, teachers and alumni of University of Karachi known as Azad Group. The group discussions centered on social problems, education and class disparity. The group also formed a theater to highlight these issues. Class divisions and poverty were the most talked about issues as these created dissentions among different strata of society that stemmed out from the very core, i.e., education. The sector most affected were the children confused as why they were discriminated against due to their social, economic or ethnic backgrounds.

Thus in 1998, the executive body if Azad decided to get their group registered and converted into a foundation. Foundation initially chose to work for children development but during the course of their investigations found out that there were thousands of children stranded in streets who ran away due to poverty and lack of resources. These children were in dire straits due to misfortune befallen on them and had no hope to survive their teens. This phenomenon promoted Azad Foundation to specifically address the problem of street children in Pakistan.

Board of Directors:


 * Mr. Syed Itfan Maqbool (Chairperson)
 * Mr. Zahid Iqbal (Vice Chairperson)
 * Mr. Naveed Hasan Khan (Principal Secretary)
 * Mr. Amjad Rasul (Joint Secretary)
 * Mr. Syed Abid Ali (Finance Secretary)
 * Mr. Zahid Riaz (Member)
 * Mr. Khurram Maqbool (Member)
 * Ms. Farah Iqbal (Member)

Area of Work:

Azad Foundation has 4 priority areas:


 * 1) 	Research
 * 2) 	Policy Advocacy
 * 3) 	Capacity Building & Strengthening the Government
 * 4) 	Service Provision

Partners:


 * UNICEF
 * British Council
 * Save The Children
 * Karachi Youth Initiative
 * Social Welfare Department
 * Muslim Hands

Working History:

'''Projects: '''

''1-Mobile Dispensary: (2003) ''

With support from corporate sector in Karachi and other private donors Azad Foundation started a mobile dispensary unit in 2003 to address healthcare and disease problems of street children in Karachi. It was very first project of Azad Foundation which marked a huge success and 2,000 Children Living and/or Working on Streets in Karachi benefited from this service. This project evolved into rehabilitation and drop in center, ‘Dasak’ as its logical end.

''2-DASTAK: (2004) ''

The first rehabilitation center Dastak was established in 2004 with the support of private sector in Karachi and later European Commission, Group Development, France, ECPAT International and Foreign Ministry of Luxemberg supported it. Another pilot of the same project was launched in Rawalpindi in year 2005 with the name of Dastak 2. It was designed to help street children both boys (street living) and working girls to develop a better, healthy, happy life; safety from all types of exploitation at intrapersonal and interpersonal level. The project was wrapped up in 2012 after full adaptation of AF deinstitutionalization strategy. Dastak served over 6,000 Children Living and/or Working on Streets during its project time span.

3-DOST: (2005)

In the year 2005, Azad Foundation and UNICEF got into partnership for provision of prevention and protection services through 4 drop-in centers to the street children in Karachi, policy and procedure development with government and awareness raising among masses during project tenure. During this project many successes were seen and new interventions have born out of it such as Sports for Development, Sindh Task Force on Street Children, Sindh Technical Working Group on Child Protection, Minimum Standards for Package of Services for Children Living and/or Working on Streets and Street to Satellite; a radio show for Children Living and/or Working on Streets. The project evolved after full adaptation of AF deinstitutionalization strategy in year 2012 and service provision through centers has been replaced by mobile units of the same capacity and having ability to reach out to much larger population of Children Living and/or Working on Streets. The project reached out to over 8,000 Children Living and/or Working on Streets during its tenure.

4-Drug Abuse Treatment & HIV/AIDs Prevention: (2007)

This pilot project was initiated in 2007 to lower the susceptibility of street children to drug addiction and HIV/AIDS through improved effectiveness of public institutions and NGO delivery of services in collaboration with UNODC Pakistan. Almost 800 Children Living and/or Working on Streets were rehabilitated during this project.

5-DEHLEEZ : (2007)

In the year 2007, Azad Foundation in collaboration with City District Government of Karachi established a night shelter and rehabilitation center (DEHLEEZ) to support the street children of Karachi and Pakistan in final phase of their social rehabilitation and reintegration. Dehleez provides child and family counseling, skill development and vocational training, job placement, case management services, food, hygiene, medical care and non-formal education services for Children Living and/or Working on Streets along with family tracing and reunification. It has the capacity to accommodate 100 children at a time. Over 1,000 children had been rehabilitated and benefited from the services in Dehleez since its establishment. This institution has managed over 3,000 external cases of children living and/or working on streets.

6-Deep Sea: (2009)

Deep Sea Project was initiated with the support of UNICEF as part of Day Care Center Project to explore the vulnerabilities of children working in deep sea and to design protective services and early warning system for vulnerable children which would deter a reasonable number of children becoming part of street life.

7-Street Children Resource Center: (2011)

Azad Foundation with support of UNICEF established a first of its kind street children resource center. This resource center promotes evidence based planning and programming for Children Living and/or Working on Streets. Furthermore, it provides opportunities for capacity building to government officials, civil society members, media affiliates and teachers/students of Universities and Colleges through short/long term training courses and project assignments. Its evidence producing/research and communication for development organs also support the policy advocacy and promotional efforts of Azad Foundation’s programmatic interventions. (www.streetchildren.org.pk )

External Links:


 * Azad Foundation: http://azadfoundation.org/
 * Azad Foundation on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StreetChildrenResourceCentre
 * Azad Foundation SCWC Team Pakistan: https://www.facebook.com/TeamPakistanSCWC
 * Azad Foundation on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Azad_Foundation & https://twitter.com/scrc_tweet