Scholarships Change Lives - Take Part in Their Future — Wadaan Scholarship

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ILLUMINATION

6 min readJul 30, 2020

The primary objective of scholarships is to provide a privilege to the learners or alumnus to track & meet their goals of higher studies. As everyone knows that scholarships are not a repayable loan; students would not have to return the money after having accomplished their studies. Scholarships are a special gift for the students, it is a stimulus-reward for the students for continuing with their higher education. One should believe that low-income is not a limiting factor of intelligence or capability. Therefore, it should not be a hindrance to students seeking higher education.

Because learning opportunities are closely tied to income, endemic poverty keeps far too many students from getting the higher education they need to break the cycle of poverty. Secondary education is a gateway to the opportunities and benefits of economic and social development.

Nowadays, college degrees are more important than ever. Data estimates that in 2020, 65% of job offerings will require a college degree. And with college graduates averaging a salary double than that of their non-degree-holding counterparts, getting that higher-level education is essential. But getting into, paying for, and graduating from college is also no easy task. It’s only made it more difficult for low-income students. Who have financial needs but do not qualify for traditional financial aid from the institutions.

If you want to make a difference, be part of their journey!

Luckily, numerous organizations dedicate themselves to promoting low-income students, helping them access and pursue the education they deserve. By reviewing school policies, working with students to create plans, finding scholarship opportunities, rewarding good grades, and also advocating for equal opportunity, these organizations work hard to ensure that those with low-income backgrounds won’t be looked over or treated unfairly when it comes to education.

By distributing the aid money on a fixed, bi-weekly basis, the program helps the student achieve a healthy balance of time and dedication between school and a job. Such a balance eases stress and gives students more time to study and do their homework. That improves both their grades and graduation rates. Mentoring not only helps students strive toward bolstering life-long skills such as critical thinking, self-advocacy, and curiosity.

Our primary goal is to create a positive ‘change’ in the lives of rural and semi-urban populus. Our mission is to help the poor people in Pakistan directly and to help them acquire the tools and skills to help themselves. In an ideological and practical long-term sense, one of the best ways of improving the condition of rural or semi-urban homes in Pakistan would be through the education of the youth. Education provides opportunities for the up lift-ment of entire communities if the next generation is equipped with the basic requirements of making a sufficient livelihood combined with a knowledge of civic responsibility. Considering, the financial circumstances there are only so many that one can help and you would want to give that cutting edge to those that have the potential to rise through adversity despite having means that might seem as a disadvantaged and underprivileged.

Huzaifa, a young kid who managed to ace his matriculation exam. (Source: Image)

One such shining example is lately circulating the internet, Huzaifa, a young kid who managed to ace his matriculation exam and is forced to work because such as is his circumstances and being an orphan.

Social media helped uncover this young individual and give him an unprecedented opportunity which I feel that can give others with the power of today's world of connected-ness and we can find all the other ‘Huzaifas’ in our country that does not have the opportunity and we would like to identify with a network of friends of Wadaan to reach out into all the districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa initially and give such true-life heroes a chance to have the “Wadaan Scholarship”.

We often forget how success has more to do with opportunities rather than a person’s aptitude.

Methodology — Criteria for selection of the next ‘Huzaifa’

A selection process that is objective and nondiscriminatory; A large selection pool of potentially eligible individuals known as a “broad charitable class;”
Selection criteria that align directly with the charitable purpose of the scholarship program and systems to monitor whether recipients performed the activities for which they were selected.

Stage 1. Reaching out to the social media community to fill out google forms for such individuals that they know personally or through someone and then follow a strict point scoring system to see who actually has an objective best outlook in terms of guaranteed success and how much our scholarship can help that individual. The reason for using the social media community is to get the community involved in activities of such ideology so they can start to contemplate and maybe perhaps extend their own generosity if feel they know a potential candidate.

Stage 2. Reaching out to our friends that help us with distributions and help us arrange raw materials and they have a tight-knit, in which they know and have loads of such individual that they feel would benefit from this scholarship so they can nominate through filling out a performa/application form (attached appendix) that can help us have the basics on the particular individual. We will reach out to our friends in all districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to help us identify and make a database of all the potential individuals that can be highlighted and support through the allocation of funds towards ‘Wadaan Scholarship’.

Stage 3. Finally, when the database is created and the results are feed into spreadsheets, the algorithms will decide the potential candidates and then a committee of donors and core committee will go through the list of potential individuals and choose the top 10.

Other non-profit-organizations that provide similar services in the education sector include the following listed below and could potentially help someone that might need some guidance.

This scholarship is a prize to further a specified objective to cover a specific incurring cost on the recipient, to help them achieve excellence in the domain of academic realm. Grantees are to be selected on an objective and nondiscriminatory basis. The group from which grant recipients are selected must be sufficiently broad so that giving grants to one or more members of the group fulfills a charitable purpose; however, selection from such a group is not necessary if one or more grant recipients are selected on the basis of their exceptional qualifications to carry out the purposes of the grant or it is otherwise evident that the selection is particularly calculated to effectuate the charitable purpose of the grant rather than to benefit particular persons or a particular class of persons.

Timeline of events

Application form for Wadaan Scholarship — (Source: Self-Made)

Other non-profit-organizations that provide similar services in the education sector include the following listed below and could potentially help someone that might need some guidance.

Scholarships Change Lives - Take Part in Their Future — Wadaan Scholarship

Written by Omer Nasim