Increase Girls' Access to Education in Pakistan

The highlight for this report is that 56 girls in our group appeared for their annual exams, and all passed and were advanced to the next level. These students were all in the 6th through 8th grade. Exams for the older students have also been held, but results won't be announced until later in the summer. We'll be able to provide the final update in our next report.

Bedari, our partner in Pakistan executing the program, has scaled back on some of the extracurricular programs in lieu of academics only, out of a concern for sufficient finances to carry our students through the year. We hope that we can raise some additional funding to support the non-academic parts of the program, as the girls really enjoy the diversity and it adds significantly to their worldview and well-being. As the photo accompanying this report shows, excursions such as the ones we reported on back in March bring a lot of joy to the educational process.

On a positive note, we're seeing a growth in donors from outside the US, thanks in large part to our colleagues here at Global Giving in the UK. With a number of promotions supported by donor challenge-matches, we're getting a lot more visibility beyond our normal borders. Thanks to everyone who has recently joined our cause.

Bedari had some challenges over the past few months migrating and updating their website, but the new site is up, stable and has lots of good information. For those of you who would like to follow their programs directly, I've included their website link below. As we may have mentioned, Bedari's new executive director is our dear friend Safeer Ullah Khan, who has been point contact on our program from the beginning. We've been so happy to see him fitting right into these new responsibilities.

All the best -

Steve Murchie
Denver, CO USA

Links:

• Bedari Website