KARACHI: A non-governmental organisation running a makeshift school for around 2,000 street children under a flyover in Clifton near the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine has alleged that the Sindh government has asked it to either hand over the school with children to the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) or shut it down.

However, the SEF said that it had only “requested” the NGO to become a “partner” for streamlining the education of street children roaming mainly around shrines, where they were more vulnerable.

Syeda Anfas Ali Shah Zaidi of the Ocean Welfare Organisation said that she was recently asked by the SEF to hand over the school and threatened to involve police if she did not agree to the proposal.

She said that she did not agree with the SEF over their proposal, but now she feared that this government organisation would resort to state power.

“They [SEF] have used a threatening tone and warned us that if we don’t become their partner or bring children under their arrangement, they would order the police authorities to close down our school,” she said. “We started this school three years ago with a few children. Now we have around 2,000 children who don’t want to become part of any government scheme. We are doing this only on humanitarian grounds with no profit or commercial viability. Our contribution has been appreciated worldwide but unfortunately here things are working the other way.”

SEF Managing Director Naheed Durrani, however, dismissed Ms Zaidi’s allegation and said that she was “misinterpreting” the proposal, which was part of a recent policy focussing on finding solution for children roaming around shrines and other vulnerable places.

“We only humbly requested them to bring their children in our schools as schools on footpaths can never become a permanent source of education,” she said. “It’s absolutely wrong to say that the Sindh Education Foundation threatened the welfare body to do so.”

She said that the chief minister had set up a committee tasked with finding solution for children around shrines and other vulnerable places and in the first phase “we are focusing in areas around mazars and other vulnerable places”.

However, Ms Durrani couldn’t come up with a clear reply when asked about the possibility of any forced closure, shutdown of the footpath schools if the managements of such facilities did not agree to the foundation’s proposal. She said: “I can’t comment on this. Let the government decide.”

Published in Dawn, January 31st, 2018