‘Maid in Pakistan’: Combatting Girl-Child Labor with EdTech

Problem #1: Lack of Access to Education for Girl-Children-

According to UNICEF, Pakistan has the world’s second-highest number of children who do not attend school. Only 60.6% of children in Sindh Province between the ages of 5 to 14 attend school with 11.6% combining work and school. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the already rampant inequities in access to education for girl-children from underserved communities in Pakistan. With the rise of inflation and economic uncertainty within low-income families, young female girls are at much higher risk of being pushed into child labor.  

Problem#2: Child Labor- 

Children aged 5-18 years are commonly employed as child labor in major urban centers of Pakistan including Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. UNICEF estimates that about 3.3 million Pakistani children are currently trapped in child labor, depriving them of their childhood, their health and education, and condemning them to a life devoid of opportunity. 

Many child workers are often abused and traumatized by informal employers (who tend to be affluent), suffering physical beatings and repeated psychological torture during the most formative years of their lives. Tragically, many of these girl children grow up to become adult maids while their own girl-children end up as informal domestic workers themselves -  the cycle of trauma repeats itself.

Maid in Pakistan is a women/girl-centered program designed and developed by Naya Jeevan (‘new life’), an impact organization that provides social protection services (e.g. health insurance and life insurance, mental health & wellbeing services and financial inclusion) to informal and formal workers from underserved communities.  One of the key target populations that Naya Jeevan seeks to impact (in line with the 2030 SDGs) are 6 million informal, illiterate or semi-literate domestic workers in Pakistan (maids, babysitters, etc.). A significant portion of this target population (estimated to be between 50% to 60%) were not schooled and also have girl-children who are not attending school due to: (i) lack of affordability, (ii) working as child labor or  (iii) other sociocultural barriers. 

Naya Jeevan has developed a 3-pronged solution to address this:

1] Tech-Enabled Access to Education:  in collaboration with EdTech platform TeeSquare (https://www.teesquare.org/) which provides access to both individualized, self-paced learning as well as group-based learning formats. All software, hardware and internet connectivity is provided to both the girl children and their mothers (the adult working maids) as part of the program. 

2] Tech-Enabled Access to Psychosocial Support: (including trauma-release therapy). In collaboration with health-tech venture and MIT SOLVER, doctHERs, Naya Jeevan will provide this target population with unlimited access to trauma-release therapy and any additional

3]Tech-enabled Access to Prospective Employers (for the adult maids): The annual costs of the ‘Maid in Pakistan’ program are amortized into the monthly wages of the maid. Prospective employers are made aware that a pre-defined portion (e.g. 10%) of the adult maids’ monthly salary is dedicated to providing her children with access to the TeeSquare EdTech Platform as well as an educational stipend that offsets the earnings of the girl-child from domestic work (~$2/day). This educational stipend is a retention tool that ensures that the girl-child remains in school and does not re-enter the child labor workforce.

Our solution services 2 key populations:

(i) young girls, aged between 5 to 18 years who, in the absence of our intervention would be pushed into child labor. The target population of girl-children originate from lower socioeconomic backgrounds where household incomes are less than $6/day. 

(ii) mothers of girl-children - these mothers, aged between 25 and 55 typically work as maids and have been subjected to years of physical and/or psychological stress by their employers. In many cases, these adult maids greatly benefit from trauma-release therapy. 

Maid in Pakistan helps to: (i) improve the intellectual/cognitive development and self-esteem of girl children via the smart use of technology-enabled educational tools available via the TeeSquare EdTech platform and (ii) enhance the psychosocial support provided to both girl-children and their adult mothers (who work as maids) by giving them unlimited access to therapy. 

The Founder of Naya Jeevan has personally experienced the effects of girl child labour which he recounts in a talk he gave at the Asia Society (New York) in May 2010: https://asiasociety.org/video/asher-hasan-spark-extinguished?page=278 This expereience inspired him to found Naya Jeevan For Kids (NJFK), a US-based, not-for-profit organisation back in 2007. 

The current Naya Jeevan team is an eclectic mix of doctors, nurses, therapists, social entrepreneurs, design thinkers, anthropologists, research, advocacy and policy academics, educators and ‘techies’. This cross-functional, multi-disciplinary, melting pot enables Naya Jeevan to deliver ‘integrated innovation’ - social, financial and technological, in collaboration with both the development and private sectors.  

To exchange learnings and insights and explore potential synergies with other SOLVERs and prospective Corporate Partners. 

[1] Digitized personal learning technology supports self-paced learning and meets the girl-child at her level and in her local language (Urdu);

[2] Access to Online Therapy - for the psychosocial support of both the girl-child and her mother;

[3] an Educational Stipend that replaces any lost earnings from child labor and keeps the girl-child in school;

Our solution addresses i) accessibility, ii) affordability, iii) local-language adaptation, iv) quality - the EdTech platform we are using was developed by a former CTO of a Multinational Company affiliate in Pakistan. 

1 Year:

1. Enroll 500 girl-children in TeeSquare EdTech Platform 

2. Provide 200 girl-children and their mothers (maids) with trauma release therapy

3. Enable familial understanding of ease of girl child education

5 Years:

1. Scale Maid in Pakistan to impact over 2 million adult female maids 

2. Amplify TeeSquare enrolment to 3 million girl-children (previously out of school)

3. Partner with public sector and private sector educational systems in PK and fully integrate Ed-Tech as a viable, feasible learning solution for girl-children while keeping them out of child labor. 

SDG 4: Quality Education (% of girl-children matriculating/graduating from high-school)

SDG 5: Gender Equity (% workforce participation rates)

SDG 8: Decent work with Economic growth (% change in monthly income)

SDG 17: Partnership for the Goals 

Ed/Tech teachers/facilitators (inputs) will interact with small clusters of remotely located girl-children who will be provided with access to hardware, software and connectivity (inputs) which will generate access to (i) online group-based classes and (ii) self-paced learning modules and (iii) video-consultations with therapists (outputs), which will improve social and emotional intelligence (EQ) (outcomes) while also also releasing past psychological trauma (also outcomes) of girls and their mothers, which will generate full support of girls between the ages of 5 and 18 to lead confident, empowered lives which will enable them to achieve their highest potential (impact).

Artificial Intelligence, Software, Application, Information Communication Technology.

We have an inclusive hire policy that ensures at least 10% of the workforce comprises people with special needs. In addition, our company was founded by a person of color and is predominantly managed and serviced by people of color. From service providers to customers and employers, NAYA JEEVAN strives for diversity, equity and inclusion. 

For every dollar we receive from a prospective employer, 80% will cover the monthly wage of the adult female maid,  10% will cover the cost of the EdTech platform/program and 10% will cover the cost of the mental healthtech platform/program. Any additional programmatic costs incurred by Naya Jeevan will be self-financed as part of its own corporate citizenship.

The Maid in Pakistan model is an earned-income model which integrates and amortizes all program costs (education, health, therapy, etc.) into a monthly subscription (a monthly wage) that is paid by a prospective employer to one of the maids enrolled in this program.  By 2025, Naya Jeevan will be generating sufficient revenue to co-finance any additional direct costs it incurs for the Maid in Pakistan program as part of its own corporate citizenship.  Any grants/awards we receive beyond 2025 can then be channeled to amplify the impact of this not-for-profit work as part of our own corporate citizenship.

NAYA JEEVAN’s BlueCare healthcare plan for informal and formal workers in corporate value chains has been profitable since 2017, generating over PKR 270 Million in topline revenue in 2021. This cash flow has enabled NAYA JEEVAN to amplify its impact and redirect some of its resources to not-for-profit (at-cost) projects that have huge social impact such as Maid in Pakistan.  

Innovation Awards: 

1. 2013 – Rockefeller Foundation Centennial Innovation Challenge ($100,000)

2. 2014 – VISA Innovation Challenge ($250,000)

3. 2017 – McKinsey Geneva Forum for Health Award (for Founder Dr. Asher Hasan)

4. 2020 – GSMA Mobile For Humanitarian Innovation Challenge ($400,000)