Your Zakat empowers 12,000 student leaders

Dear partner, 

Ramadan Mubarak! On entering the month of blessings, we at Teach For Pakistan are excited to reflect on the incredible progress made by Fellows and students alike - made possible as a result of your unwavering support. Your contributions have supported more than 150 Fellows and 11,000+ students! The past few months at Teach For Pakistan have been very exciting: second-year Fellows have been working closely with their students, schools, and communities as they prepare to conclude their 2-year journey and join our 302-strong Alumni community. Our first-year Fellows have been diving deeper into their work with students and schools, making significant strides in their leadership journeys. 

Additionally, Teach For Pakistan’s 2025 Zakat Campaign is now also live! This year, your Zakat will enable 150+ Fellows to work towards transformational outcomes of 12,000 students and enable them to nurture the skills they need to become exceptional leaders to lead their communities and the country to a brighter future.

Below is an overview of how your contributions have enabled transformational student outcomes and aspiring leaders: 

From Fear to Fun: Working on student literacy and engagement

Nimra is a first-year Fellow teaching English to Grades 5-7 at a government school in Bhara Kahu. When she began teaching, she found that her students were faced with a big literacy problem - they struggled with vocabulary, spellings, pronunciation, and writing etc. Her students were fearful of the subject and hesitated to engage with it, impacting their learning.

Determined to solve this, Nimra worked towards creating an engaging learning environment where students took ownership of their own learning through classroom resources and visual aids. She created a word wall to improve students’ vocabulary, and used sentence charts and flashcards to increase student engagement. These resources were kept up in the classroom so students could also refer to it independently.

The impact was obvious: students' test scores rose from a 49% to 75% average in English. They began picking up new words at an accelerated pace - learning 30 new words every month, and students referring to the word wall on a daily basis! The visual aids and additional resources sparked their interest in learning, making them feel more confident in reading and writing, and also pushed them to express their curiosity and opinions in class. Two of Nimra’s students also participated in a Spelling Bee, with one placing first at the cluster level and another securing second place in all of Bhara Kahu! 

Seemingly simple resources transformed Nimra’s students’ fear of English into joy and active engagement, as well as excitement to learn new things. 

Becoming Math Masters

First-year Fellow, Farhan teaches Mathematics to Grades 3-5 at a government school in the subsector Bhara Kahu. At the start of his Fellowship, he found that the only source of learning Math for his students was through textbooks, making it difficult, unapproachable, and hard to engage with. He knew something had to change if he wanted his students to develop an interest in the subject. 

With essential classroom supplies such as colourful chart papers and stationery, Farhan designed interactive games for students to engage with different topics so they would find math easier to comprehend. He also made use of flash cards for students to practice math functions with more ease. Each of these activities, supplemented by essential classroom supplies, greatly impacted student growth and interest in the subject. 

To maintain the momentum built by these strategies, Farhan also positively reinforced students actively engaging with the subject. He purchased and handed out prizes such as ‘Math Genius’ stickers for top performers, mini dice sets so students could play their own math games at home, and certificates for ‘Fastest Problem Solver’, ‘Math Wizard Award’, and ‘Math Participation Star’ among others! 

The impact of all this was significant - students that before showed an average mastery of 36% in the subject began scoring between 70-100% on their monthly tests! Previously hesitant, they were now eager to engage, enjoying the interactive activities, collaborating with peers, and even practicing independently at home.

Your contributions and support were immeasurable in pushing Farhan’s students to see Mathematics as more than just a boring subject, but an adventure to be conquered. 

Building Student Leaders

Fellows Sidra and Shazia teach English, Science, and Social Studies to Grades 3 and 4 at a public school in a subsector of Islamabad - Nilore. When they first started teaching, they struggled with a disruptive classroom - students constantly arguing, disobeying class rules, and not taking responsibility for their learning. Knowing that classroom culture inevitably affected student learning outcomes, both Fellows decided to find a solution.  

Sidra and Shazia implemented a Classroom Management System, using colorful chart papers to award coloured stars based on student behavior - the visual scale allowed students to track their growth. Soon, both Fellows saw that students were meticulous with tracking their progress, and eager to follow class rules to earn more green stars. 

To further reinforce positive behavior, the Fellows introduced a ‘Classroom Ministry’ system. Students who consistently earned the most green stars were given titles such as ‘Resource Ministers’ and ‘Discipline Ministers,’ with responsibilities like distributing worksheets or managing the class in the teacher’s absence. Fourteen ministers from Grade 4 received their badges at the start of the month and are diligently serving in their roles, and fourteen ministers from Grade 3 completed their monthly duties and received certificates for fulfilling their roles exceptionally.

Through these strategies, classroom supplies became not only tools for creating an engaging learning environment but also opportunities for students to take on leadership roles and responsibilities, fostering a sense of ownership in their learning journey.

Give your Zakat today

Support other Fellows like Nimra, Sidra, Shazia, and Farhan in providing exceptional learning opportunities for their students and play your part in enabling the educational leaders of today build a brighter future for tomorrow.

Donate now and double your impact. All donations will be matched 100%.

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• Visit here to donate and support our Fellows!

Dear Partner, 

We hope you are well. 

The past few months have arguably been some of the most special here: Teach For Pakistan found its way back to Karachi after almost a decade, placing Fellows in schools in the city to begin their leadership journeys. We also welcomed back our second-year Fellows to begin their second and last year of teaching in schools, preparing them to further strengthen the progress and impact they have been making with their students and school communities for the past year.  While we were working to grow students in the classroom, we didn’t lose sight of how they would grow outside it. At Teach For Pakistan, we believe in growing students’ physical capabilities hand-in-hand along with their minds. In this regard, October has been a month where we have celebrated our students' achievements outside the classroom, and worked towards their holistic development. 

Voices for Change

Teach For Pakistan participated in the 3-day Girls Sports Carnival held mid-October, organized by the Federal Ministry of Education in collaboration with the Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education in Islamabad. The event brought together approximately 4,000 female students and athletes from all over the country, aimed at promoting girls’ involvement in sports, and a means to nurture their passion for it. 

Teach For Pakistan’s presence at the event cemented the organization as an impactful partner of the government, working towards a shared vision for our students. While the event was attended by many Fellows and their students with a passion for sports, we wanted to go one step further and push attendees to think about the kinds of inequities already existing that result in various challenges, including lack of female representation in sports. To do this, we curated two activities. The first of these was an interactive board where we asked attendees to write their responses to the question ‘What dreams do you have for the children of this country?’. Here, both adults and children alike could share their thoughts, pushed to think more about the future of this country’s children. This activity was important because it gave many the opportunity to reckon with the question of inequity, how it manifests in our everyday life, and what our hopes are to change it. 

In this work, we find that our most important stakeholders - our students - are the ones often left out of narratives on how to work towards an improved education system. Our second activity, meant specifically for students attending the carnival, was an opportunity for them to write letters and short notes on the question ‘What is your vision for your school?’. This was a unique opportunity for many students, in some capacity, to become part of the discourse on how they want their education and schooling to be and look like, giving us a chance to hear from them about what they want. We found these students to have big hopes and dreams for how they want to learn: being taught in new ways, learning for the sake of learning as opposed to out of fear, having access to resources and materials that aid their learning, and being able to participate in sports at school among others.

Our involvement in this event was significant because it was a convergence of our belief in strengthening students’ physical as well as intellectual capabilities. 

Champions on the Field 

Our students are talented both within and outside the classroom, and recently had a chance to showcase their skills in a game of street cricket. 6 of our Fellows and 15 students participated in a cricket match with professional players from the Lahore Qalandars, the Barmy Army, and female players from the national cricket team. Our students (Team Teach For Pakistan) played against Team UK in Pakistan. With a chase target of 104 runs in 10 overs, our students pushed themselves to give it their all and play as a team. 

Team Teach For Pakistan’s efforts were successful, as they played a thrilling match, ultimately winning by 5 wickets and with 6 balls remaining! It was also our own student, 13-year old Saim, who was awarded the Player of the Match award.

Creating joyful and safe learning spaces for our students is critical for them to feel challenged and motivated to engage in intellectual and physical activities, which are integral to the work we do at Teach For Pakistan. These opportunities nurture their mind and body, building their skill sets and capacities for all walks of life, and push them to dream big about what their future could look like, without restriction. This event was organized in collaboration with the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office in Pakistan, and we’re hopeful in creating more opportunities for students to engage with their role models in areas they’re passionate about. 

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