A Pakistani electrician, Naseeb Jamal, is defying odds by teaching six out of his eight daughters his craft to help them become self-reliant in the future. Jamal, an electrician for 20 years, runs a dingy repair shop for electronic appliances in Qasba Colony, Karachi. While two of Jamal’s younger daughters are still learning, four are already adept electricians and their father’s pride.
“When I had four daughters, it came to my mind [that] why shouldn’t I give them education?” said Jamal, who moved to Karachi from the Tor Ghar area in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. “But I couldn’t give them education due to shortage of financial resources. Then I thought that why shouldn’t I give them skills?”
Jamal’s attempts to empower his daughters have been opposed by conservative neighbors and family members.
In his capacity as a father, Jamal wants to at least make his daughters stand on their own feet, he said. Two of them are already married and happy, he said, because they had learned to be empowered.
The girls, who attended regular school before the coronavirus pandemic shut down campuses across Pakistan, also help Jamal run his business.
One of Jamal’s younger daughters, 10-year-old Javeriah, said she found the work “a little difficult” at first but had gotten the hang of it.
“I have learnt it from my father,” she said with a smile as she handed a repaired battery charger to a customer. “I fix lights, I fix speakers and I can fix the charger of battery.”
Jamal believes that girls should not be kept confined to their homes: “If you want them [girls] to learn to have trust in themselves, you will have to bring them out [of the homes]. And you will have to trust them.”
Source: Arab News PK
