An innovative way of education....

LYARI
is the oldest area of Karachi. The people of Lyari are daily wage earners, mostly manual laborers, but few are employees of various Government Institutions. Since Pakistan Inception, Lyari has been a house of problems, such as education, unemployment, water & sewerage, electricity and so on.

Baghdadi is one of the important segments of Lyari. Before formation of ARM, it had been a place of drug pushers and the drug Mafia. They recruited youth and children of the area as sellers.

The place where ARM is situated had been a garbage dump. All over the people of Baghdadi used to dispose their garbage here.
Before 1985, there was an inverse pyramid of educational facilities. There was a high drop out rate in schools. Most teachers in government schools were untrained. Thus the schools imparted a very low standard of education. As children did not get benefit from schools and just used to waste their times. Parents often did not send their children to schools encouraging them to work. Private schools were preferred, but they were so expensive, that poor could not afford them.

In 1985, a few neighborhood youths began the program to stop youth and children from being involved with drug pushers and drug Mafia. Accordingly they formed ARM Child & Youth Welfare on April 18, 1985. They removed all drug sellers and Mafia from Baghdadi area. They cleared garbage dumps and set up an education center (street school) where they started to educate the children of the area. At the beginning they sewed discarded bags of flour together and used them in place of curtain. Children sat on the mats.