Educational conditional cash transfers
As Minister Social Protection leading the pride of Pakistan BISP (SSN) I inherited and expanded the W-e-Taleem program- details can be found on www.marvimemonllc.com/publications/ Those who matter the most Page 206. It was a whole science and I am sure its improving by the day. The above is the way it is supposed to be done; and now a story of how the above processes were routinely blocked by difficult stakeholders.
A story that comes to my mind was when all else failed in a staunchly Taliban infested area in Northern Pakistan. I got a panic call from the social mobilizers there through my management team when I was Minister. They were missing national targets and they needed my help!
“Maam they are refusing to let the beneficiary mother committees meet to discuss girls education in Chilas GB. They refuse to speak to any of us. They say call Marvi Memon. We trust her. She has taken votes from us. We want her here now. We will negotiate the terms with her only. You are NGOs we dont trust you.”
Of course it was a rough territory geographically and hard people to deal with mostly clerics whos concepts of Islam were very far from my Sufi tolerant concepts but I needed girls in schools so I told my federal ministry teams to move travel arrangements through treacherous roads asap.
We arrived and in a small hall with the usual Chilas refreshments awaited two dozen ferocious looking Taliban type clerics. Very welcoming! I had seen plenty in my election days so was not uncomfortable. They were full of arguments of why women had no business congregating in homes with only women, leaving their own homes, discussing why they should accept the money to send their girls to school. I am usually super careful about quoting from Quran, because to be hit with blasphemous charges is easy if you get one word wrong, so I kept to my basic script.
I am a patient person only when I have my goals clear. A good four hours later and a lot of tea (which I don’t enjoy and Marie biscuits which I do), I had convinced every single one of them. The girls ended up going to school. I didn’t enjoy my negotiations because they were tedious and repetitive; but it was for a noble cause. You won’t always find logical, like minded people in life; politics teaches you to be hard skinned. You have to think of the greater cause other than you; it is necessary to build trust and explain why and what in the language they understand.
We all won; the girls go to school. The teachers still send me Eid wishes. I love them equally. They are Bhittai’s people. They are my people.
And now a sad story… somewhere in the villages of Chitral. My staff rushed into the office and said “Maaam put the TV on there has been an accident in Chitral. Children had come under a glacier whilst walking to school in one of the most gorgeous and yet treacherous Northern areas.” They knew what I was going to say. “They are our people. Sort flights. Sort road travel living arrangements. Tell the elders we will be there for the burials if possible and if on time and if not for condolences. All other meetings cancelled of course.” In our culture burials must be reached on in time! Come what may! We reached. the weather was harsh, the journey was rough. But that was my life and now these great bureaucrats DMG lot peppy Oxbridge types were now getting used to a Minister not just behind a desk but with her people.
I realized that day what I had always read in reports. Schools need to be close to homes and roads need to be safe and they need to be plentiful in rural areas. But a glacier is climate change and a natural disaster no one saw coming. I condoled with the parents. I did what I could do and I left soon after the bodies were found and buried. It was a tough one. But it was one of many tough ones.
Education is taken for granted. it is 2023, there are areas of this planet where it is still a struggle to get to school. SOTF needs to ease those processes. It’s text book. Not rocket science. We have done it. We will do it. Future generations must go to school in rural rough areas.
And now a final one. I have too many stories but just this last one. An IDP camp in Bannu KP because of displaced terror victims whose villages had been temporarily taken over by the Talibans whilst our armed forces flushed them out. How well the schools were set up in makeshift camps there by local government, and UN agencies; and how eager the kids were to attend school in the scorching heat. I remember staying overnight in a tent and making sehree (ramzan morning breakfast) for the soldiers who kept the security tight from the Talibans. They were protecting us all. The children must now be in colleges I hope. The soldiers did a fine job of setting up schools fast. And we as politicians must have done our bit in giving courage I hope; and fine tuning cracks between different systems of governance military-civil. Always a challenge but a pleasure!