Month: September 2011

Dear Trustees, Donors and Friends,

Today marks the completion of our first phase of scholarships and relief assistance to be disbursed during the current fiscal year.

We have pledged over Rs. 100,000 per month in scholarship and relief aid for the next 12 months. This amount shall be distributed among 15 highly deserving young people. Of these, 14 are undergraduate students—7 at NUST, 4 at FAST-NU Islamabad, and 3 at FAST-NU Lahore.

The students were selected through a transparent and efficient process over a period of 6 weeks. Our awareness campaign had limitations of time and budget since we started late and were determined to keep administrative costs at zero. Nevertheless, we got excellent co-operation from the Universities mentioned and were able to reach a highly deserving pool of talented candidates in a very short time. We assigned each candidate a score based on need (50 points), academic ability (35 points) and quality of institution (15 points). In assessing the latter, we considered the University’s curriculum as well as reputation among students and employers. Our over-arching philosophy was to identify financially distressed young people who are doing well at reputable institutions so that they can find good jobs upon graduation and thus help their families and communities. You may witness the entire process of selection in the posts below and the Affidavit each recipient submitted is available here. Particulars of all 14 students are available in our office.

The 15th recipient is a young lady whose family suffered a string of recent misfortunes, culminating in the death of her father earlier this year. This family of 5 (a mother with two daughters and two sons) currently has no source of income and the eldest child is in danger of losing her admission at FAST-NU unless she can lighten her burden of debt to the University.

For next year, we are guaranteed to increase our funding of deserving candidates by about 20% to Rs. 120,000 per month. However, we estimate that the need of only the good students at reputable institutions alone is at least 5 times greater. We must therefore organise an aggressive awareness campaign over the next several months. Please do whatever you can in this regard. Action would be more valuable than advice because all our staff is volunteer and already over-worked. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Chairman

All candidates interviewed last week have successfully verified their documents and have been awarded FURTHER Scholarships for 2011-2012. Details shall be provided in your award letter to be collected from our office in Islamabad at 6 PM on Wednesday, 28 September 2011. Please remember to bring a fully executed Affidavit to receive your award letter. Candidates from institutions outside the Islamabad-Rawalpindi area can send a scanned copy of their completed Affidavit by email and follow it up with the original via post. The Affidavit may be attested by a government officer (Grade 17 or above), a bank branch manager, a university professor, or a notary public.

Congratulations to all our successful applicants. We are proud of your courage and committment. As long as we have young people like you, this country may yet have a future. We have learned from you a good deal about our society, our values, and ourselves. You have also helped us understand a few things that will hopefully enable us to become better administrators of this Trust. Thank you and good luck.

After some difficult decisions, the Board of Trustees has provisionally approved 14 candidates for FURTHER Scholarships 2011-2012. It is a matter of great satisfaction for the Board to have reached such a deserving pool of highly capable young men and women in a very short time. The following statistics provide a clear snapshot of the quality and need of the successful candidates:

• Average GPA: 3.37 (Source: University Transcript)
• Average Intermediate Score: 83.75% (Source: HSC Certificate)
• Average Matriculation Score: 88.18% (Source: SSC Certificate)
• Average Household Income: Rs. 23,679 per month (Source: Proof of Income)
• Average Number of Dependents: 4.79 (Source: Family Form B)
• Average Household Income per Dependent: Rs. 4,389 per month

The amount of support shall be determined after a personal interview to be held in Islamabad next week. The following candidates must appear for the interview with the originals of the 5 source documents mentioned above:

1. Waleed Aslam
2. Muhammad Hassnain Arshad
3. Asad Liaquat
4. Muhammad Farrukh Zia
5. Sanwal Muneer
6. Muhammad Shehryar Raza
7. Asma Mushtaq
8. Muhammad Hassan
9. Syed Muhammad Amais
10. Sumbal Rizwan
11. Usama Abdullah
12. Ummair Asghar
13. Kashif Ghaffar Asim
14. Rida Naeem

Please look for an email from us on Saturday, 17 September 2011, to find the date, time, and address for your interview. Please remember to check your SPAM and JUNK folders. If a candidate does not appear for the interview or does not bring all documents in original, his or her award shall be withdrawn and distributed among the other approved candidates.

Our apologies to all other applicants who, though deserving, could not receive an award because of limitations of funding. We hope to improve our funding capabilities next year.