'The Gender Guardian', First Transgender School Opened in Pakistan
There will technical education in courses like fashion designing, beautician and hair-styling courses, graphic designing, computer and mobile repairing, among others.
In a very progressive move, Pakistan has opened the first school for the transgender community on Sunday, April 15, 2018. The classes for the school will begin from today, April 16. The school based in Lahore is called 'The Gender Guardian' and is built by an NGO named Exploring Future Foundation (EFF). It is the organizations first effort and they plan to open two more branches in Islamabad and Karachi.
The inaugural ceremony took place amidst much cheer by the people of the community. Pakistan Today reports, transgenders performed different plays while the crowd gathered cheered for them. The school will offer full academic education of 12 years, culminating in college education. Along with the academics, the school will also host crash courses for different hobbies. There will technical education in courses like fashion designing, beautician and hair-styling courses, graphic designing, computer and mobile repairing, among others. There will be separate sections- primary, matriculation and also graduation. There is no age limit for admissions in the school.
The school's founder Asif Shahzad has said, "The transgender population has always been discriminated against. The basic discrimination begins when we take them out of our schools and rid them of their basic right to education." Currently the school has 15 faculty members and three of them are from the transgender community and about 30 students have already taken admission in the school.
Moizzah Tariq, EFF Managing Director said in IANS report, "Most of them have shown interest in sectors of the fashion industry including learning about cosmetics, fashion designing, embroidery, and stitching while some have also shown interest in graphic designing and culinary skills. Having gained information from them first we designed our courses for them." The entire plan is to provide them with a formal education, good enough for them to set up their own businesses. The NGO will also help them further in the procedures to set them up. According to a report in Dawn, Pakistan's total population of transgender people reported in the sixth Population and Housing Census in 2017 was 10,418. This is really a great and laudable move taken by the NGO.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 16, 2018 05:07 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).