ICT hub helping Chitral youth to earn through freelancing

The educated youth in the remote Garam Chashma valley in Pakistan have started earning through freelancing using the facility of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) hub established by the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP), where all the related amenities, including electricity and Internet, are made available around the clock. Some of the beneficiaries of the ICT hub run by the AKRSP under its Central Asia Poverty Programme, told Dawn that this mode of earning livelihood was quite unheard of here until last year when the facility was established. Irshad Aziz, a student of a Lahore-based university and beneficiary of the centre, said that he was no more dependent on his parents to meet his educational expenses after he started earning through an online job for which he had got training in the centre last year during the summer vacation. “I spend two to four hours daily doing my online job whether I am in the university hostel or in my village during vacation and during the journey from Lahore to Chitral for which I am indebted to the centre.”