ISLAMABAD: As winter descends in Islamabad, five-year-old Khaula living in a refugee camp in the capital was haunted by the thoughts of going to school every morning in cold weather without any warm clothes until she got a set of warm clothes from Chinese volunteers.
Khaula and many kids of her age are living in a bad shape in the refugee camp in which their clay and stone-built houses are not enough to provide them warmth and protect them from the freezing cold.
Many kids, whose fathers are labourers in Islamabad’s vegetable market, and whose mothers are housewives, have to miss school in winter due to illness in extremely cold weather.
Chinese volunteers were no less than a blessing for the kids shivering in temperatures slightly over 3 degrees Celcius, when they gave the woollen coats to them.
“We keep on coming to the refugee camp to help them with supplies used in education as we believe that education is the most powerful tool for them to improve their living condition and financially empower them in the future,” Ma Bin, focal person of the China-Pakistan Youth Exchange Community, told Xinhua.
He added that the warm clothes were donated by people from China for the students to make their lives easy so that they can focus on their studies.
Housed in the refugee camp where thousands of refugees are living, the four-room school is the only hope for a better future for the refugee kids who have seen extreme poverty since their birth.
Talking to Xinhua, Sahib Shah, headmaster of the school, said 220 students from grades one to five are studying in the school, and after completing their education here, they will join the Pakistani government-run schools for higher classes.
He said that the kids are from poor families, with some of them being even homeless so the timely help by the Chinese volunteers is a great help for the kids whose families are unable to provide them with warm clothes.
“It is a very commendable activity and we are so happy to receive help. They are very poor and the season is very cold,” Shah said, adding that the Chinese volunteers consistently help the kids who eagerly wait for them.
“They help with clothes, food items, uniforms, stationaries, and other things. It shows that they feel the kids close to their heart and always try to help them for making their life easy,” he added.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are over 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
