Month: October 2019

Misbah-Ur-Rahman is a BBA qualified from Sindh Madressa-tul-Islam University (SMIU) with his majors in Finance. He plans to go for Masters in Finance & Investment from Karachi University Business School (KUBS).

Misbah joined us at Street To School as Internee. In a discussion with Misbah, he mentioned about how he got motivated to work for a community institution?

“At the final semester of my course, I got guidance from my mentor, that I should spend time to learn and relearn more about my subject – Accounting and Finance, and I should engage myself to a kind of community service as it gives more freedom of doing work and leading projects. Further my mentor said that since I was going through an age where I need to strengthen my knowledge base so I need to work as a volunteer, this would help me tremendously to develop my own portfolio, before I go to apply for a job!

Misbah expressed his pleasure while working as a Finance Associate at Street to School. He not only did the compilation of financial data but got opportunity to reconcile records and develop financial reports.

Internship at STS gave him hands-on experience to learn about financial model applied in Education sector. Misbah learnt and applied this learning into thesis of his study programme.

As mentioned by Misbah about the topic of thesis he was given: ‘Impact of Compensation/Financial performance on non-profit organizations’ donation’. This internship project let him study a financial model of not-for-profit sector. The work is directly related to his thesis requirements. The research work is all he did by gathering and compiling financial information of Street To School.

“Now I am ready to produce a project-report based on the rich experience I gained during Internship at STS.”

Syed Muhammad Ashraf is a student at International School of Choueifat- Abu Dhabi. During his short trip to Pakistan, owing to summer vacations, he wanted to make his presence count in Pakistan. In pursuit of helping the deprived, and to find the right channel, Ashraf knocked NVP!

It was a Wednesday morning, when he walked in at NVP office to have one-to-one meeting. Ashraf was of the view to volunteer his time and make his skills productive. Keeping in view his choice of work NVP team offered him an assignment at Dewa Academy for the role of Academic Coordinator.

Ashraf met the CEO and team at Dewa Academy. He was assigned to conduct a class ‘Sunshine’ designed for adults of up to 22 years. These kids are active in doing their routine work like taking food, running cycle, playing games etc. However, they are a bit slow learner when it comes to reading and studying.

Ashraf was appointed to assist his instructor during physical therapy exercise or checking their work in class. Zeeshan Soomro, incharge of autism unit at Dewa, guides Ashraf about mentality of these children, as they accept love and generosity instead of coercive way of teaching. It helps in increasing their ability to learn and improve reading habits.

In a conversation with Ashraf:

Kindly brief us how you adjusted yourself within Dewa academy?

In the beginning, students treated me as a stranger and they tend to get frightened, every time I tried to mingle with them. However, with a consistent effort, I brought them all in a comfort zone with the help of engaging activities and making them enjoy their time.

I had meaningful time with these kids. They taught me how to cope up with challenges and face the real world. No doubt, I found NVP a professional platform where a volunteer can offer services.

Ashraf’s volunteer supervisor, Zeeshan Soomro, who started to work at Dewa Academy 12 years back as an Art Instructor, says:

In order to train students, we need to go to the level of that student. If a student is of age 3.5 years then I have to picture myself the same to deal with him/her. I look after their hygiene problem, sex awareness, communication, socialization, cognitive development, self-help, and ADL (activity of daily living skills). We also need to focus on child’s sensory integration. In short, all efforts are to develop the civic sense in a student to behave consciously in the society.

How NVP can be of your help?

We do not necessarily need professionals. Rather, we need people who have desire to work with special children. Offering these kids food, guiding them to drink water or playing with them is also a skill. These kids are basically visual learners.

We need volunteers who have intention to serve the community, should be of creative mind and artistic. We highly recommend volunteers who join us, should not have favoritism or strong friendship with these kids, as they get disturb when a volunteer signs off his/her assignment.