The organization works diligently to improve the overall condition of those who dwell in the city of lights by forming a platform comprising of leading social sector players in order to create maximal impact in areas of Health, Education and Nutrition
Karachi is the biggest and one of the most important cities of Pakistan. Unplanned urbanization and incontrollable growth has plagued it with a host of social diseases which usually malign the forgotten dwellers of this huge expanse; those living below the line of poverty – in the slums and on the streets. This is where Aman Foundation comes in and lends a helping hand to those who have no support of their own. The foundation is a local, not-for-profit trust, based and operating in Pakistan. Inspired by a proactive commitment to the cause of human development, the Foundation aspires to make strategic interventions to support development in the areas of Healthcare, Education and Skills, and Nutrition. Apart from its own social development initiatives, Aman Foundation also engages in venture philanthropy by providing strategic grants to high-social-impact organisations that work in the Foundation’s core areas of focus.
The foundation was set up through initial funding by the Aman Trust – a social sector enterprise, headed by Arif Naqvi and his family that aims to champion the rights of the underserved throughout the MENASA region. The initial $100m funding to Aman Foundation is the single largest in the country’s history and has enabled the foundation to initiate a host of projects aimed at uplifting the underprivileged lives of those residing in Karachi. The goal of the organization is to ‘Promote systemic change in the areas of health and education by creating sustainable and scalable social enterprises’, which it will expand to the rest of the country in its later stages. Health and Nutrition is the first pillar of the Aman Foundation’s strategy to reach its objectives and till date the organization has launched various unique projects to fight the growing percentage of preventable deaths in the city. In September 2008, the first AMANGHAR was set up by the foundation as a relief house for children in dire need of a balanced nutritional diet. 3000 children were registered into the project and uptil now over 1.7 million meals (twice a day) have been served to the children at the ‘AMANGHAR’. The project at that time was one of its kind and provided a successful model for other social entrepreneurs to take inspiration from and expand further. Besides this, at the core of the foundation’s health initiatives are the Emergency Medical Services – ‘AMANAMBULANCE’. Started in 2009, the project now has 100 fully equipped ambulances operating all across the city and has conducted over 312,000 emergency distress calls till date. The ambulances also operated as mobile clinics during the flood relief efforts in 2010-2011. Aman Foundation has also set up a Tele-health service for the low income population and people stranded in far flung areas. The program hires top of the line doctors and medical advisers and has the capacity to handle half a million calls per annum. The model follows already successful set ups in India and sub-Saharan Africa and is currently planning for a nationwide growth through partnerships with Unilever and certain telecom companies. Moreover, a chain of 20-bed clinics are being planned all over Karachi with an aim to address the extremely high maternal and infant mortality rates in low access areas. The four programs together form the Health and Nutrition services of the foundation.
After the health and nutrition services comes the educational part of the foundation’s work which is still pretty high on the organization’s agenda. Aman Foundation realizes that along with basic education, the youth of this country requires regular skill building and honing. For this purpose, the Aman Foundation launched a program for vocational training called ‘AMANTECH’. The program seeks to create a skilled work force which complements the strenuous requirements of the private and public sector organizations. Equipped with state-of-the-art workshops and a broad base of experienced instructors, the Foundation has allocated USD 40 million towards catalyzing skills training in Pakistan. To achieve success at scale, the foundation is partnering with specialist international vocational organizations, such as GIZ (Germany), City & Guilds (UK), and Skills International (Sri Lanka). Currently the Institute has 2000 students enrolled in 9 trades. Of the first batch 87% of students cleared the City & Guilds examinations, 22% achieved distinctions in their respective courses. Placing successful graduates into jobs is part of the undertaking the Foundation takes upon itself – all graduates to date have been offered jobs in the Middle East and The Foundation has also partnered with Arabtec to provide employment opportunities in the future to over 1,000 students annually, which provides their families with a stream of guaranteed income for their social uplift. The Aman Foundation also launched another educational program in 2011 which targets teacher training. Young graduates from all over the country are enrolled in the program and are placed as teachers in under-resourced schools of the country for a period of 2 years as volunteer teachers. Till date, 60 graduates are enrolled to teach in 40 low income schools and almost two-thirds of the volunteers hail from top business universities of the country. ‘AMANSPORTS’ is another one of its kind educational program which aims to provide children with a right to play and instill basic learning in them through sports. The program targets grass roots sports activities at school level and looks to create an opportunity for top performers on a professional level. The program looks to create a revenue stream to take its activities on a country wide scale through its operations and by bringing on board international sports organizations; Real Madrid Foundation signed a MoU with the Aman Foundation in Nov, 2012 to open up football and basketball academies in Pakistan for school going children. The last educational program of the Aman Foundation is the ‘AMANCULTURE’ which is basically an educational resource for those looking to use arts to achieve a better lifestyle. The primary focus is to provide the city youth with access to live culture through Aman’s Culture House located in Karachi. The program’s goal is to increase the level of appreciation for arts on grass roots level for which purpose the program runs a teacher outreach program that takes arts to low income schools of the city.
Apart from its 2 core services of providing Health and Nutritional, and Educational services, the Aman Foundation also strategically funds various other charity efforts throughout the country. Up till now, the foundation has provided grants worth $27 million to various charity and educational institutes. The Foundation’s work is a continuous process where each completed step leads to a start of another cycle targeting a larger audience and newer ideas. The Aman Foundation is probably one of the newer charities working in the country, but in terms of projects and success rate, it is considered amongst the best and it needs support from the privileged society to help in carrying out its objectives and continuously expanding.
The Aman Foundation can be contacted at:
www.amanfoundation.org
UAN: +92 (21) 111-111-823
AMANAMBULANCE: +92 (21) 1021
AMANTELEHEALTH: +92 (21) 111-11-3737
AMANTECH : +92 (21) 111-11-8324
Fax: +92 (21) 35823698
