Human Development Foundation

Sustainable Economic Literacy for Female (SELF) Program

By YesPakistan.com Staff Writer

In the rural areas of Pakistan female literacy rate is very low. HDF started its education program with basic non-formal schools and expanded to include adult literacy. Involving adult women in any kind of learning program is an uphill battle. Even the girls education is the least priority, let aside adult female literacy. There are many reasons for that. Beside the cultural restrictions, the common thinking is that adult women do not need to read or write since their primary function is to take care of the household chores, which they are doing anyway and that they do not have the time to sit in the class and learn to read and write. Many adult literacy programs in Pakistan have failed due to this.

So HDF had to come up with an innovative way to implement this program. The fact that HDF model is an integrated development model, gives HDF an edge over many other organizations. So the management team of HDF in Pakistan came up with a revolutionary idea of linking micro-credit with adult female literacy.

HDF charges a profit (not interest) of about 15-16% for all its loans. This is according to the Islamic principal of Murahaba system. So to encourage women for enrolling into the adult literacy program, HDF decided to charge them 12% profit for a loan amount of up to Rs. 10,000. This has raised the rate of enrollment for women in the adult literacy program.

We are confident of the success of this program. We believe that at the end of the program, we’ll have not only literate women but also successful business women who will be able to manage their own businesses.

Date/Time Last Modified: 2/24/2003 2:53:00 PM

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