+92-42-37167491 bunyad@brain.net.pkLahore, Pakistan

UN ECOSOC affiliated · Since 1992

Bunyad Literacy Community Council

Literacy is where everything else begins.

For over three decades we have opened literacy centres, schools and skills programmes for women, children and families across rural Pakistan.

Support a learner See our work

4M+Lives reached through programmes

193Projects completed

5,000+Teachers and volunteers trained

5,526Literacy centres opened

Recognised by UNESCO

UNESCO Comenius Medal (1998) and King Sejong Literacy Prize (2002). Our mobile literacy programme is a UNESCO LitBase case study.

Read the UNESCO case study →All awards & certifications →Featured in Defence Journal (2024) →

Five ways we build foundations

Every programme starts in the community: local teachers, local ownership, and a plan to keep going after funding ends. See all 28 projects → · Project history since 1992 →

A women’s literacy session at Sukura Girls School

Education & Literacy

Adult literacy
Self-run schools
Brick kiln workers
Afghan refugee education
UNESCO partnership

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Children at an outdoor awareness session at a Bunyad school

Child Protection & Youth

Cotton-picking children (ILO)
PEIMA & PEF schools
Child rights awareness

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A health vaccination camp run with the ILO

Health & Wellbeing

Women’s health
Hepatitis B & C screening
Mind Camps for mental health
Rescue 1122 training

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Handmade baskets made by vocational trainees

Livelihood & Skills

Vocational training
Goat farming
Kitchen gardening

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Emergency preparedness training with Rescue 1122

Disaster Response

Flood relief
Emergency schools

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Flagship partnerships

Long-term programmes with trusted partners

Alongside our work with the Government of the UAE and our UNESCO mobile literacy programme, these partnerships carry Bunyad’s work into new districts every year.

Korean National Commission for UNESCO (KNCU) · since 2012

Lifelong learning for girls and women

A long-running partnership on basic education and lifelong learning for rural girls and young women in Lahore, Hafizabad, Khushab and Rahim Yar Khan.

Mobile Rickshaw Library, running since 2014, has reached 9,805 readers in villages without a library.
Women Empowerment Programme with KNCU and Rah-e-Mishal has reached 6,000+ women.
SDG 4 programmes for young women and adolescent girls, from 2022 and continuing.
Children’s Safety guide published with UNESCO and KNCU in 2026.

Watch the KNCU presentation →Children’s Safety guide →

Aawaz II · British Council · 2023

Rights and voice for marginalised communities

Under Aawaz II, Bunyad works with communities in Hafizabad and Sialkot against child labour, early and forced marriage, gender-based violence and discrimination.

11,741 people reached in Hafizabad and Sialkot.
Aawaz Aagahi Centres offering counselling, legal awareness and referrals.
Community education on religious harmony and equal rights, including helping a Christian family in Sialkot win their daughter’s birth registration after discrimination.
Village and district forums bringing citizens and officials together.

About Aawaz II →Girls’ rights work ↓

Girls’ education & rights

Keeping girls in school, and out of early marriage

For rural girls aged 10 to 18, Bunyad combines safe learning spaces, life skills, sport and legal awareness so families choose education over early marriage.

2,500+

Girls trained as leaders

Communication, decision-making, digital literacy, health and self-defence, across 6 districts and 180+ girl-friendly centres.

300+

Early marriages prevented

Through family counselling and legal-rights workshops for 1,200+ parents and community leaders.

500+

Girls playing sport

Volleyball and cricket teams that build confidence and change how communities see girls.

Case study

Awaz Aagaahii Centres: safe spaces for women and children

Eight centres across Punjab offer counselling, legal aid, skills training and a helpline for women and girls facing violence, forced marriage or abuse, linked to Rescue 1122, Child Protection Bureaus and local police.

8 centres6,000+ women and girls supported1,500+ local influencers engaged

With: UN Women · Punjab Women Development Department · Punjab Commission on the Status of Women · Social Welfare Department

Women and girls at a Bunyad awareness session

Innovation

Learning that travels to where people are.

From rickshaws stacked with books to a phone app in Urdu, we take learning to villages that classrooms don't reach.

New

ILM علم

A mobile-first, Urdu-language app that teaches digital literacy to women in rural Punjab. Now in pilot at Bunyad literacy centres.

Explore ILM →

Mobile Rickshaw Library

Books delivered door to door in villages without a library.

Digital Hubs

Community spaces for computer and internet skills.

Library Corners

Reading shelves placed inside schools and centres.

UNESCO case study · since 2009

Mobile phones that keep women reading

Women aged 15 to 30 first complete a two-month literacy course at a Bunyad community centre. Each learner then receives her own mobile phone and gets six to eight lessons a day by SMS in Urdu, answers by text, and sits a monthly test, so new reading skills are practised every day instead of fading.

Bunyad ran community mobilisation, the literacy courses, facilitator training and SMS delivery. UNESCO’s Institute for Lifelong Learning now features the programme in its LitBase of effective literacy practice.

Partners: UNESCO Islamabad · Punjab Literacy & Non-Formal Basic Education Department · Mobilink · Nokia · Dhaka Ahsania Mission

Read the UNESCO case study →Watch the film

0% → 39%of pilot learners in Sialkot scoring 70–100%, from the first month to the last

100new centres in the 2012 phase across Punjab, South Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

250 → 2,500learners per phase, from the 2009 pilot to the 2012 expansion

6–8Urdu lessons a day sent by SMS to each learner’s own phone

Stories from the field

From child labourer to CEO

At ten, Usman Bilal was making surgical instruments in a Sialkot workshop for Rs 500 a month. A Bunyad–ILO centre gave him evening classes after work. He topped his class, returned to school, spoke for working children at World Congresses on Child Labour in Florence and New Delhi, and received the Prime Minister’s Leadership Award. Today he has an MBA and runs his own surgical instruments company.

“None of these achievements would have been possible without Bunyad. It changed my life forever.”

Usman Bilal, former child labourer, now CEO of Care Way, Sialkot

Read Usman’s full story →

Partnership with the Government of the UAE

Bringing child camel jockeys home, and keeping them in school

In 2005 the Government of the United Arab Emirates and UNICEF agreed to return children used as camel jockeys to their home communities. Most of the children who came back to Pakistan were from Rahim Yar Khan.

UNICEF and Punjab’s Child Protection & Welfare Bureau brought in Bunyad as the umbrella NGO to rehabilitate them, working across 89 villages in seven union councils. In partnership with the UAE Government, Bunyad helped 12,470 camel jockey children leave bonded labour.

UAE Government official meeting former camel jockey children in a Bunyad classroom

12,470camel jockey children helped out of bonded labour

89villages in seven union councils of Rahim Yar Khan

2,000young people trained in life skills and health

800children in youth clubs learning their protection rights

What Bunyad did

Carried out the baseline study in 62 villages of Rahim Yar Khan where returned children had been reunited with their families.
Formed community organisations and trained local focal persons as social monitors to prevent re-trafficking.
Set up youth clubs for 800 children, half of them girls, to learn about their right to protection.
Trained 2,000 young people in life skills and health, and 800 duty bearers on preventing trafficking, abuse and corporal punishment.
Linked families to schools, health care, vocational training and micro-credit so children could stay home and in school.

Partners: Government of the United Arab Emirates · UNICEF · Child Protection & Welfare Bureau, Punjab

Watch the Camel Jockey documentary ↓