LAHORE: Kashf Foundation, one of Pakistan’s leading microfinance institutions, was awarded the prestigious European Microfinance Award by the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs. This is the first time that Pakistan has won the award and is in recognition of the foundation’s credit and training facilities to low-cost private schools.
European Microfinance Award is the only one of its kind in the world. Launched in October 2005, European Microfinance Award was started by the Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs of the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs to nurture innovative microfinance initiatives. The award highlights the importance of having an innovative approach and structural impact. It also acknowledges the creative use of both financial and non-financial tools to improve the quality of the social and economic lives of families.
Pakistan suffers from lack of quality education, especially within the public sector. As a result, the country saw a rise in low-cost private schools which look to fill the gap left by inadequate equipment and facilities in public sector schools. After extensively researching the needs of low-cost private schools, Kashf Foundation tailored an integrated solution that provides access to finance, school development trainings and general pedagogy trainings for teachers. To date, the foundation has serviced over 1,100 schools, trained 4,500 teachers, trained over 1,800 school owners and impacted more than 570,000 students in low-cost private schools across Pakistan.
Kashf Foundation has been working for the economic and social empowerment of women since 1996. Kashf provides low-income households, especially women, access to finance through micro-credit and micro-savings.
Roshaneh Zafar, founder and managing director of the Kashf Foundation, expressed her pride in how the award recognises the importance of microfinance in reaching the goal of universal education, “Every child deserves a good education and education provision needs to be child-centric. The Kashf program provides a new way to address issues of low-cost private schools and can also provide means of getting more out of school children into schools,” she said.
