Noor’s educational endeavours

Big-hearted Noor Abid has taken early retirement and focussed his efforts on charity work in his native Pakistan as he endeavours to bring education to children devastated by terrorist attacks in the Peshawar region.

Noor established Diya Pakistan in 1988, with the primary aim of providing education for talented but financially distressed students throughout the country. He balanced his charity work with his profession as a chartered accountant and the head of audit for Ernst and Young’s Middle East and North Africa branch until 2012 when he decided to dedicate himself completely to his cause.

Eighteen years later, the charity runs more than 500 educational institutions benefitting 40,000 students a year, and awards 20,000 scholarships a year through its various projects from primary school to university level.

Noor said: “Diya was inspired by my mother’s vision as she had great foresight. Following her advice, I and a group of friends pooled in a small amount of money in 1988 and got the charity started.

“Pakistan faces an education emergency with approximately 25 million children not going to school. The only sustainable way for our country to progress is by having a well-educated, value-driven society. Since its inception, Diya has provided more than 250,000 education scholarships with a spending of 500 million Pakistani rupees (BD1.8 million).

“We do not invest in hard infrastructure, instead we focus on enabling talented students. We sponsor deserving students at all levels from schools to universities, and many of these students have graduated as engineers, doctors and with degrees.”

Diya’s latest programme is called ‘142 Home Schools’ which is directed towards providing education to street children who are not able to go to a normal school. Touchingly, it is dedicated to the 142 children tragically murdered during a Taliban attack on the Army Public School Peshawar on December 16, 2014.

The event was the deadliest terror attack ever to occur in Pakistan, and Diya has promised to build 142 new home schools for out-of-school children aged eight to 10. Each school is run by a trained teacher whose house is adapted to hold 30 students and, most importantly, will be named after one of the victims in memory of the devastating loss of life.

Noor explained: “The sentiments and emotions of this project are indescribable. I personally spoke to some of the parents whose children were so cruelly ripped away from them.

“They were deeply touched that we have dedicated schools in the name of their martyr children, and our commitment to them is that ‘We Shall Not Forget You’. All of the parents were overwhelmed and we are very grateful to each and every one of the sponsors who have adopted and are paying for these schools.”

Noor is confident that Diya will continue to develop and grow in scope as it aims to achieve its goals. When the foundation started more than 25 years ago, it comprised a small group of friends with limited resources but with a determination to make a difference in the lives of the less-fortunate people in Pakistan.

Now, more than 2,000 people have made Diya and its beliefs their mission. Most of them are young volunteers from Pakistan and the Middle East, contributing their time, skills and funds with a firm belief that, together, they will make a difference.

In Noor’s words, this is the biggest achievement of Diya. He said: “We are very proud of what Diya has achieved to date and with a great sense of humbleness recognise that none of this would have been possible without our donors, volunteers and supporters, to whom we are extremely grateful.

“I believe that our outlook is very bright. Pakistan is a country with immense potential and an incredible future, and our youngsters are increasingly aware of their surroundings and shouldering the responsibility to tackle the education challenge in Pakistan.”

Noor’s goals are to expand Diya’s activities to be able to reach out to 100,000 students by 2021 and in the process, increase the donor and volunteer team to more than 5,000 active individuals.

For more information on Diya Pakistan and the 142 Home Schools programme, visit https://www.diyapak.org/ats.php