Educare Foundation provides LGBT students in Lahore, Pakistan with scholarships to enable them to continue their higher education.
A total of 50 students, from 4 different Lahore universities have been supported, 30 with funding provided by PlanetRomeo Foundation. Among them are 8 female and 2 transgender students. The scholarship covers part of their tuition fee which is equivalent to an average amount of € :50 to € 70 per month.
For more than 50% of Pakistanis, education is little more than a dream. For those in the LGBT community the situation is even worse. Rejected by their families and by Pakistani society generally, they have little or no access to education. They can get no financial help from the government, nor can they appeal for other financial resources to further their higher education.
Two years ago, a professor, whose name can’t be revealed for his own safety’s sake from one of Lahore’s universities, started Educare Foundation to support LGBT students in Lahore. Educare focuses on students who have severe family and financial problems because of their sexual orientation.
Because of the extremist nature of Pakistani society, students are reluctant to have their photographs taken or to reveal their identities. Even if we made their faces unrecognizable, the background location of a photo could be used to reveal their identity. For that reason the photo we have published with this article is a stock photo.
The professor expresses his gratitude on behalf of the students: “Planetromeo Foundation, not only supported the education of these students, but also enabled them to become a proud LGBT person. It gave them a self confidence of being a lesbian or a gay and it was extremely fruitful for their psychology to know that there are people who respect them for what they are.”
