Pakistan: Safe Home Initiative

With schools closed due to the Covid-19 lockdown, poor communities lacking access to e-learning facilities in small cities and rural areas were severely impacted. The Safe Home Initiative mitigated the impact of Covid-19 on families disproportionately affected by the pandemic in remote districts of Punjab and Sindh, including Sajawal, Sukkur, Khairpur, Bahawalnagar, and Narowal.

Working with a local partner, the Foundation provided 500 families education and hygiene kits which contained extensive learning resources, and provided educational content online in the form of e-books, poems, and worksheets. Social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook were used to disseminate the resources. Hygiene kits consisting of recyclable sanitary pads for women were also distributed and community-level engagement workshops guided women on their proper usage. To increase resilience in a time of increased challenges in the home, these workshops also covered child protection and gender-based violence prevention.