Widows support: 180 households now on monthly assistance
A short report on who the programme reaches, what it costs, and what we would do differently.
Our widows support project reached 180 households in Faisalabad this quarter, up from 124 at the same point last year. Every household on the list has at least one school-age child.
Who it reaches
Households are added after a home visit, with priority given to families where a child had already stopped attending school or was working part-time. Fifty-one of the households joined through referrals from teachers at schools where we already fund students — teachers know which families are struggling in a way a visiting team never could in a single day.
What it cost
Monthly assistance across the quarter came to PKR 5.4 million, funded entirely by individual donors. A further PKR 900,000 went to skills training and equipment grants: forty-one sewing machines and starter materials.
What we would do differently
Two things. We were slow to move households from assistance onto independent income — the skills training started three months after the stipend in most cases, and it should run alongside from the start. And we underestimated how much demand there would be for basic literacy classes for the mothers themselves, which we had not planned for at all.
Of the 180 households, 168 have all school-age children currently enrolled. Following up on the remaining twelve is this quarter's priority.
If you would like to support this work, the donate page has our bank details, or you can volunteer to teach a skill.