Educating underprivileged Pakistani children is the mission of The Citizens Foundation, a non-profit organization which sprang from a group of citizens concerned about the lack of education for the poorest children of that country.

Begun in 1995 with the belief every child should have access to a quality education regardless of class or gender, TCF founders built five schools in the slums of Karachi with their own resources.

Since then, The Citizens Foundation has grown rapidly with new chapters springing up across the United States and worldwide.

In 2015, the Eastern Pennsylvania chapter was formed, under the leadership of Dr. Ahmed Hasan. On May 20, the group had its first fundraising gala at the Holiday Inn, Fogelsville.

Traveling from Texas to attend the event was Abdullah S. Jafari, a board member of TCF USA, whose childhood friends are founders of the foundation.

He gave an overview and shared his passion for the cause.

“This organization was actually formed in Karachi, Pakistan, in 1995,” Jafari said. “Then in 1996, the founders built five schools in the slums of Karachi with their own resources.

“The group announced that by 2020, they would like to build up to 1,000 schools for the underprivileged children in Pakistan, and that goal was actually achieved in 2014.

“As I speak with you today, we have 1,202 schools. And, from the initial 800 students, we now have 175,000 children getting quality education.

“By design, we have 50 percent girls and 50 percent boys. Our program is such that we only employ female teachers and today, we have a 10,100 all-female faculty.”

The TCF community came out for an evening of celebration and support for the children in Pakistan.

Beautiful artwork was up for auction, seconded only by the magnificent Pakistani dress worn by many of the women in attendance.

Guests were treated to traditional light Pakistani fare while mingling before an evening including dinner, speakers and festivities.

More than 200 people attended the event.

State Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-134th, was in attendance.

“TCF is a terrific organization,” Mackenzie said. “You can see the level of support from the community for an effort like this at tonight’s event.”

Also coming out to show his support was state Rep. Mike Schlossberg, D-132nd.

“First of all, this is clearly a wonderful organization and it’s so good to see the Lehigh Valley have a heart,” said Schlossberg. “Second, I challenge anybody who has any sort of racism or hatred toward the Islamic community to walk into a room like this and see thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars and hundreds of people raising money for humans across the world to tell me that Islam is a religion of hatred.”

While the TCF gala was a glorious celebration of fellowship and fundraising, the organization’s mission remained the focus.

“They [Pakistan] has 30,000,000 children many of whom are in a situation where either the drug guys will get them or the terrorists will get them,” said Hasan. “If we take them out and put them in school, they’ll learn to be productive people.”

According to Hasan, the cycle must be broken where the poorest of the poor Pakistani children cannot attend schools because their parents have no money.

“So, we are putting the money in, and this is the only way we are going to fight this thing,” he said. “Just TCF alone has 1,100 schools in Pakistan.

“We took about 200,000 kids out of that pool. Two of our kids who were dirt poor and who had never been educated before, have received scholarships to Harvard.”

Jafari also explained his feelings about the foundation.

“This has nothing to do with Islam or Muslims,” Jafari said. “We are a very secular group. We give a standard international education to our children.

“The schools are all in Pakistan but we have chapters in Australia, Singapore, the Middle East, Qatar, UAE, Norway, Switzerland, UK and Canada.”

Recently, First Lady Michelle Obama’s office reached out to TCF on behalf of the Let Girls’ Learn Initiative and USAID.

What makes this organization different?

“Many charities are helping their communities through different programs, but our program is something very, very unique,” Jafari said.

“It is very unique in the work, because one thing that is very different is we do not give poor education to poor children.

“So in order to do that, we do not sacrifice on quality and our teacher’s training program is one of the best.

“We build quality facilities with quality educators. We believe in giving them the same facilities that are available to the children of the rich, because if you cannot give them that, they will stay poor.”

More information is available at tcfusa.org.