Sarah Ashiqueali, Youth Leadership Grant Recipient

Sarah Ashiqueali
Nova High School, Davie, FL

Click here for a recent article in Ismaililmail about Sarah’s grant.

Click here to read an online article in the Sun Sentinel about Sarah’s project.

“Empowering Motherhood: Health to Future in Pakistan”

Sarah was born in Miami, Florida. She has extensive travel experience and has visited various realms within Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Through her voyages, she has encountered numerous cultures and has witnessed the affliction faced by the underprivileged throughout the globe. Sarah is additionally a resistance training fanatic and frequently exercises. She enjoys participating in a wide range of sports including basketball and Varsity soccer at school. Sarah aspires to become a future neurosurgeon and desires to establish an organization dedicated to early child development.  With her God-given talent of writing, she has been given the magnificent opportunity to write, through requests, for the Executive Producer of CNN, Maria Ebrahimji. Sarah firmly believes that to better oneself, one must enrich the world in extraordinary manners.

Project Summary

Nearly 8.8 million children die every year before their fifth birthday. Of those 8.8 million, 423,000 die within Pakistan alone. Namely, the causes of these unfortunate and preventable mortalities include: poor sanitation, improper personal hygiene, lack of improved drinking water, malaria, cholera, typhoid, malnutrition, under aged pregnancy, stillbirth, low birth weight, failure to immunize children, deprivation of proper knowledge on birth control, and cleft pallet. It is quite evident that the deficiency of health education amongst pregnant women has impacted the Pakistani population in tragic manners. Living within a power nation, the United States, it is imperative that I enrich the lives of those living within third world countries by providing health instruction to underprivileged women. In the beginning, schooling twenty women will save twenty lives and this in turn will gradually trigger the amelioration of excessively high mortality rates.

Early childhood development has become an increasingly large issue within the areas of Interior Sindh, Tando Mohammad Khan, and District Hyderabad (Pakistan). Due to my geographical familiarization with these regions and the support of people with identical aims, I will implement this project within the country of Pakistan as opposed to other nations. Ultimately, the project will: provide health monitoring vaccinations, home visitations, enhance children’s nutritional status by improving mother’s funding in health and child care practices through the distribution of nutritional supplements, encourage community involvement to stagnate this ascending issue, educate midwives, mothers, caregivers, and lady health visitors to rear children better than they would without assistance, and inform mothers of the necessity of educating themselves in early childhood development. This project is essentially intended to provide prenatal and postnatal care for underprivileged mothers living below the threshold of poverty.

To successfully launch this project, objectives must conform to local and national expectations and norms of the country of Pakistan. The project cannot stand alone and will collaborate with the Aga Khan Hospital, the Health Department of Pakistan, as well as the Civil Hospital. A health center will be established within the conformity of the laws and regulations. In order to keep the checks and balances, the project under my supervision will fulfill the aforementioned aims through firmly established channels of communication. As Irene Sendler once said: “Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth, and not a title to glory.”

Reflection

“At the quintessence of the three Abrahamic faiths, lies the stronghold of motherhood. Motherhood has not only defined religion, but it has transformed civilization. To preserve the significance of this universal responsibility, society must work to teach female figures the essential components vital to cultivating the globe.”