October 10, 2021
NewsLetter

Greetings All,

We are very excited to share the news that we have now served over 50,000 meals to children through our School Meal Programme (SMP)! With your support, we have been able to continue on our journey and hit this great milestone.

Based on this success, we have started expanding the programme by adding a second school to our network which is also in Orangi, Karachi. This second school is a government run school where we have started the meal program after getting the necessary green signal from the provincial education department. Another school, which will be our third, has also been earmarked already. This, too, is a government run school. Both these are within a kilometer radius of our present kitchen so, logistically speaking, quite manageable. As we spread our program, we are considering the possibility of installing satellite kitchens in the various disadvantaged neighborhoods of Karachi, a city of over 16 million people. We will keep you informed as we take steps in that direction. Here are some pictures to share:

Over the last 18 months we were buffeted by Covid but as its impact has started to recede our visibility over the horizon has begun to improve a bit. This addition of a new school to our network feels like a watershed moment for us reassuring us to do some strategic planning towards our goal of expanding our footprint in the country. We are also looking at the possibility of taking our program to places in the middle of nowhere, places that would normally not attract much attention for initiatives such as ours. All in all, it looks sunny for FEF. 

By the way, we now have permission to receive funds from overseas directly into our account. For those of you who didn’t know non-profits’ bank accounts do not automatically become eligible for receiving funding from foreign accounts.

We, as always, are so grateful to all of you for helping us in continuing with our program. In being actively involved in this program we have felt, firsthand, the goodness of people, our friends, our families, and those beyond our immediate circle who have been forthcoming with their help reinforcing our belief that we can do it. Today 400 children tomorrow…..sky is the limit. 

Finally, do check out an interview of our Founder, Naveed Gilani, in the Pakistan & Gulf Economist here – share with your family and friends to spread the word. 

THANK YOU.