A good practical example of that is a school in Swat, which I inaugurated last year. The school is situated at the top of a mountain and very difficult to reach. In fact, the jeep we were riding refused to go up the last mile, and we had to call for rescue. But with our partnership with this local community, the opportunities and conditions for these children will improve dramatically. Whether in urban slums or remote rural or mountain areas, it is the communities themselves that can provide the much-needed education to their children, and our GRA assistance is just a catalyst to encourage these efforts.
Education is about transferring knowledge, skills and experiences from one human being to another.
In the context of aid policy, this means that just providing hardware such as school buildings and equipment will not suffice. In the area of non-formal education and literacy promotion, we have been making direct contributions to the Pakistan Literacy Commission through the dispatching of two experts. He experimented a number of original ideas including making paper out of discarded material such as sugar canes, banana leaves and bamboos. Now Mr. Takumi Koide is here with us today. He arrived last November, and is already playing a valuable role as advisor to the Pakistan Literacy Commission.