LAHORE - Governor Punjab’s wife and Sarwar Foundation’s (SF) Vice-Chairperson Perveen Sarwar has said that we are teaching vocational skills to women prisoners through HunarGah centres in 15 jails across Punjab so that they can earn a respectable livelihood for themselves after completing their sentence.

We are running a HunarGah centre in Child Protection Bureau Lahore and working to open HunarGahs in different cities of Punjab is underway.

While talking to media and different delegations in Sarwar Foundation

Secretariat on Saturday, Perveen Sarwar stated that: ‘’When I see children who should be in school begging in the streets, it breaks my heart, as a society we have failed them. We must try to end child beggary and child labour.

We are lifting families out of poverty by teaching self-sustaining skills to underprivileged women in various areas of Punjab and Azad Kashmir. ‘’ Sarwar Foundation has trained over 20,000 women who are now earning a living with dignity.

Some of them have started their small online businesses. We are managing as many as 100 HunarGahs across the country.  On completion of training in a locality, we give free sewing machines to deserving trainees so that they can start earning right away utilizing the skills that they have learnt at HunarGah.

A survey is conducted prior to establishing a HunarGah to meet the requirements of that particular locality. Responding to a question, she said that Pakistan still has a high maternal and infant mortality rate.

This is because financially challenged families cannot afford safe healthcare facilities.

People in some areas of Punjab cannot even afford treatment of common ailments like stomach worms.

A majority suffer from diseases such as scabies, head lice and mouth ulcers due to lack of dental treatment.

To address this problem, Sarwar Foundation hold medical and mother-child care camps where deserving patients are not only checked for free by expert doctors, we also provide them with free medicines.

We have treated over 500,000 patients through our medical camps.

The vulnerable in our society cannot be left behind, we owe it to ourselves to make sure they are looked after.

All projects of Sarwar Foundation are aimed at alleviating the suffering of the less-privileged, she added.