LOWER DIR: Built in 2012 to shelter and educate orphaned children, the Welfare Home for Orphans at Gul Maqam, Chakdara, continues to remain largely unused, with no children accommodated at the facility for years, prompting local elders and social activists to demand its immediate revival.

Speaking to Dawn in Chakdara on Tuesday, elders and social workers from the Adenzai area urged the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and high ups of the Social Welfare Department to make the facility functional without further delay.

According to the activists, the orphanage was established under the Social Welfare Department in 2012. Only a handful of orphaned children were kept at the centre between 2016 and 2021, while for most of the past decade it remained dysfunctional. They said a substantial amount from the public exchequer was spent on the construction of the building, yet the objective for which it was built has yet to be achieved.

When contacted, the district social welfare officer Lower Dir, Muhammad Zaib, acknowledged that the centre was inactive due to the non-availability of the required staff. He said that at present only four Class-IV employees were posted at the welfare home for orphans in Chakdara. Of them, one was on leave without pay, while two had been deputed to another vocational centre of the department.

Mr Zaib said key posts, including a Grade-17 in-charge superintendent, a Grade-10 warden, a PST teacher, a CT teacher and a vocational teacher, had been lying vacant for a long time, making it impossible to accommodate orphaned children at the facility.

He added that the orphanage had the capacity to provide education, training, boarding and lodging to 35 orphaned children and that there was no shortage of funds.

CLASSES DEMANDED: Elders of Paito Darra, Yar Khan Banda and Khungi Shah villages at the outskirts of Timergara have urged the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and senior officials of the education department to immediately start classes at the Government Girls Higher Secondary School built in Yar Khan Banda.

Talking to local journalists in Timergara on Tuesday, area residents Shafiul Haq, Ziauddin, Fazal Rabbi and others said the project was tendered in 2018 at a cost of Rs823 million and construction work was subsequently launched. They said that although the school building had been completed over the past seven years, classes had yet to begin.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2026