Local Voices Leading the Case

Youth Organization works across a wide stretch of Balochistan, from Quetta and Chaman to Khuzdar, Gwadar, and Awaran. They work on education and health together, on the rights of women, children, and minorities, and on relief when drought, floods, or earthquakes hit. Many of these places are hard to reach. In some of them, resistance to girls' education runs deep.

In Pishin, they set up a People's Action Group on Education with PCE. The group ran an awareness campaign, gathered enrolment and retention data from secondary schools with a focus on girls and students with disabilities, worked with the district administration, identified what students with disabilities needed, and identified the poorest households.

As part of that work, they carried out a survey on a question nobody had really asked: what happens to students at the exact points where they are most likely to drop out, moving from Grade 8 to 9, and from Grade 11 to 12. They executed it carefully, making sure girls, boys, and students with disabilities were all fairly represented. They also gave the same questionnaire to the District Education Officer, so they would have the administration's view alongside the students'.

The answers showed a sharp drop in girls carrying on from Grade 8 to Grade 9. At a consultation, they put the findings in front of the DEO, who had filled in the same form himself. Students and administration were saying the same thing, and he could see it. He publicly committed to fixing the subject-teacher shortages at the two middle schools the survey had identified.

Afterwards, a Grade 8 girl told the team that being asked what would help her stay in school made her feel, for the first time, that someone in authority was listening. Her school has since been placed on the district's list for teacher placement next term.

They could not have done this alone. "As a provincial-level organization, our voice alone struggled to reach policymakers in Islamabad or shape decisions on the national budget," they say. The coalition gave them a national platform, research and advocacy resources they could not have built themselves, and enough credibility to bring district officials to the table. It also connected them with experienced member organisations who shared practical ways of working with local leaders.

They are clear about what still makes the work hard: reaching remote districts, building trust, and finding the funding to stay present long enough to see commitments through.

Their hope is plain. Every child in Balochistan, especially girls and children in remote districts, within reach of a properly staffed school, with education budgets going where the need is instead of concentrating in the cities. For the coalition, they want more resources reaching district-level members.

The lesson they would pass on tells you how they work:

"In Balochistan, the quickest gains have never come from the most forceful advocacy efforts, but from the slow, deliberate work of sitting with community elders, listening before speaking, and allowing local voices to lead the public case for their children's education."