Cooperation for Advancement, Rehabilitation and Education (Care): Empowerment Through Education

In June 1998, while assessing a decade's progress, Seema Aziz, Chairperson of Cooperation for Advancement, Rehabilitation and Education (CARE), felt that her organization had come a long way since its inception. Set up in 1988 and registered as a welfare trust in 1989, CARE had successfully set up two schools for underprivileged children in district Sheikhupura, Pakistan. In June 1998, the Punjab Government had asked if CARE could 'adopt' and rehabilitate ten schools of the Metropolitan Corporation, Lahore (MCL) on a ten-year contractual basis. Aziz had to decide if CARE should concentrate on setting up and consolidating its own network of schools, or whether it should rehabilitate and improve the standard of MCL schools, or do both. She also had to keep in mind that this experiment with ten schools could be the start of a much larger and more extensive partnership across Pakistan.