Aqeela Asifi, a Pakistani teacher outshines at Global Teacher Prize competition 2016

Islamabad: The Pakistani teacher Aqeela Asifi has been ranked among the top 10 contenders at the Global Teachers Prize competition 2016. Currently, Aqeela Asifi is teaching more than 1800 migrant children in Islamabad.

This year when Aqeela Asifi was selected for the “Global Teachers Prize she was also shortlisted for ten of the best and most dedicated teachers from the entire world which is actually an achievement within itself.

Aqeela Asifi was trained as a teacher in Afghanistan, however unluckily; she was forced to leave her homeland when the Taliban took it over earlier in 1992.

When she arrived Pakistan as a migrant, there were no working schools in the native refugee camp (named as Kot Chandana camp), and the general old-fashioned attitude of the people represented that educating girls was going to be a very tough and challenging task.

She established her first school in a rented tent and she worked hard day and night to won the battle as well as to change the negative attitudes of people in to positive attitude. And today just because of her hard work and untiring effort, there are 9 schools in the camp having countless female teachers and more than 1,500 aspirants also including 900 female students.

In the past, when she started working there was no money for the important means such as blackboards thus, Aqeela stitched pieces of cloth along with the handwritten text to the tent walls and also wrote books with her hands at night. Her students copied their first words in dust on the floor as they had no copies or papers to write on them.

The school by Aqeela has produced more than 1,000 graduates including Afghan migrant girls and Pakistani children. Few of them now have become doctors, engineers, government officials and teachers in Afghanistan.

While sharing her views she also added:

She has received lots of international acknowledgement for her contributions in education field. Last year, she also won the “UNHCR’s Nansen Refugee Award” as well as the grant of $100,000 to continue her effort in education field and to pay for educational projects.

After winning this award she exclaimed with excitement that, “When I started my mission to educate Afghan girls, I could not have imagined that one day I will win this award. I can’t express my feelings”.