‘Our Future is in Safe Hands’:

Naveed, A symbol of Self-reliance, works hard to afford his education

The grip of poverty is, of course, terrible and everybody cannot bear the hardship of being deprived of the basic necessities of life which the poor have to face during their lifetimes in every nook and corner of this unfortunate ‘land of the pure’. No matter how hard and how long they try, they are not going to be rich because they have meager resources and they are worried about two-course meal a day. Then how could they think of something big except a smooth sail with meal being provided to them twice a day.

Muhammad Naveed, 15, is however an exception and a ray of hope for this nation.  A student of 9th standard, belonging to Gokina -- a village in the vicinity of Pir-Sohawa, Islamabad which is 6 km away from the beautiful Manal Restaurant, struggles hard to earn money in order to afford his education by selling hand-made flowers. He starts selling his flowers at 4 pm and finishes at 10 pm.

He has 2 brothers and 3 sisters while he is the middle amongst them. His father, Muhammad Akhtar, is a bread-baker in Manal restaurant and gets a meager salary of 10 thousand and 5 hundred rupees a month.

Muhammad Naveed says, “I make flowers of the date’s leaves and it takes me an hour to complete one flower after that I sit near the Manal restaurant along with the flowers for the picnickers to come and purchase at a price of Rs 30 per flower. I hardly earn 100 rupees a day but I give all these money to my Mother who saves it for my books, note-books, pencils and other school expenses. Sometimes the Western Visitors come here and they show sympathy for me while giving me thousand Rupee note for one flower but this happens once in a blue moon.”

“I only sell flowers in the vacations and holidays and after that I do not get the time to sell these because I have to go to school and during school hours I am unable to work like this.” He further added.

“I study in Tahiat School and these days our school is off and that is why I try my level best to earn some extra amount of money because my father’s salary is too less to smoothly run our home. That is why I am working in order to help minimize my education’s burden on my father’s shoulders.”

He says that he likes to study more because he is fond of education. He yearns for studying day and night but the shaky and pathetic financial plight of his house does not permit him to do so.

He says, “I have the passion to join Pakistan Army to serve our country and protect it from the evil designs of our enemies. I also like to serve my parents as well and want to give ease and comfort to them because they have suffered lots of miseries in their lives while bringing us up in a very miserable condition.”

He says while talking to INFN, “After getting education and a decent job, I will open schools and colleges in my area to promote literacy and make Pakistan a prosper country.”