Wasim and His Dream

Lodhran District, Punjab: In the small village Sardar Wala, district Lodhran, Punjab, a seven-year-old boy named Muhammad Wasim used to spend his mornings in the fields, pulling out weeds with his tiny hands under the burning sun. His mother and aunt worked beside him, trying to earn just a little more than the daily wage of his father, who drives a rickshaw to support their family.

While they worked, Wasim would often watch other children in the village walk happily to school, carrying colorful bags and bright pencil pouches. He didn’t know exactly what they learned inside those classrooms, but he could see the joy on their faces, and he wished he could be one of them.

Unfortunately, his family could not afford school. With no money for books or uniforms, and no belief that education could change anything, Wasim’s dreams stayed out of reach.

That changed when a teacher named Uzma came to visit.

She didn’t just knock on the door; she opened it to a new future. Uzma and her fellow teachers spoke with Wasim’s parents and explained how learning could give Wasim real opportunities in life. They spoke from the heart, and it worked.

Now, every morning, he wakes up early with a big smile on his face. He holds his own books and colorful pencils, all provided by the program, and heads to school with excitement. He’s learning to read and write in both Urdu and English, alongside basic mathematics. He’s meeting new friends and building his confidence.

Across Punjab, the TALEEM program, funded by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and implemented by UNICEF is helping children who have never been to school or who have fallen far behind in their learning.

Over 14,000 vibrant, activity-based learning camps across 12 districts are giving almost 445,000 children, half of whom are girls, a second chance to catch up and gain the confidence they need to thrive in regular classrooms.  Almost 95,000 of these children were out of school and are learning for the first time or back to learning again. It is due to programs like this, that what was once a distant dream for many is now a living, hopeful reality.

Wasim doesn’t work in the fields anymore. After school, he helps his family at home and even teaches his younger sister and cousins what he has learned.

In many classrooms across Punjab, children are showing up but not truly learning. According to the World Bank’s learning poverty study, 65% of enrolled children in Punjab can’t read or understand simple text by age 10. And for the youngest ones, the challenge begins even earlier, with only 17% of children aged 3–5 enrolled in Early Childhood Education. These numbers speak of a quiet crisis: learning poverty. However, change is taking root.

This is more than just a success story. It’s a glimpse of what’s possible when we invest in education.

With support from the Global Partnership for Education, FLN Summer Camps are giving children like Wasim a real chance. A chance to dream, to grow, and to build a better future.

But there are still many more children, like Wasim, waiting, watching from the fields, from the streets, from their homes where books are out of reach.

With continued support, we can reach them. We can bring more children back to learning through FLN camps. One pencil, one book, one dream at a time.