#Fixit: Interview With the Head of the School

Q: First of all, could you give your name and official title in #Fixit?

A: My name is Ms. Sobia Butt, and I am the head of #Fixit school. I’ve been working with them since 2016 and am the female head of this chapter.

Q: Could you tell me more about #Fixit school?

It was started in 2017, and it’s a way of giving poor children an education. We follow a proper schooling system, even though one school day lasts for 2 hours, we have Eid parties, National Day celebrations, picnics, festivals, all sorts. This was the most heated area, but we kept on. Before we had this shade and fans, this tree provided those necessary items.

Thanks to this school, 8 children have gone to university, and 2 woman have gotten married.

Q: From where did the children come from?

There’s a village nearby. We went there, convinced the parents of those children to let them come for education. They initially refused, as they wanted their children to work and earn money. We told them that if they get educated, they’ll earn more money. The parents finally agreed to this and now the children walk here everyday.

Q: Is there a high school as well as this elementary school?

No.

Q: And what is the main reason for #Fixit?

Our Sleeping Beauty (sarcasm) should be woken. Sleeping Beauty is the Sindh Government, in the previous years. So, we rouse the Sleeping Beauty and told them that this and this is your responsibility, we are paying you the taxes and you have to use them properly.

Because their performance was at zero, they needed to be notified of these problems. We are a ‘pressure group’, we build pressure. This means we pressure them into waking up and working.

Q: So they realize the problems?

Exactly, so they realize that Pakistan needs adorning and beautifying and they move with that in mind.

Q: So, what else does #Fixit do? Like, you have a school, what else?

I guess you can say that #Fixit is an ‘umbrella’ project. Under it, many projects come. Among those projects are fixing manholes, road repairing, picking up trash, and anti-wall chalking. We protest on different things as well. For example, recently, we organized a protest against the Sindh Solid and Waste management because they weren’t picking up trash like we did. Now I don’t know the results, Inshallah, they will be good. We did, however, register that we are not happy with their performance.

The official logo

Q: Okay, what are your goals for #Fixit? What do you hope to achieve at the end?

Basically, #Fixit is a pressure group, and yes, it’s true we want to to use this platform, #Fixit, to facilitate people. To give control to society. If we are sitting at home, doing our jobs, earning a handsome amount of money, this is not enough. What are we giving back to society? We have taken from it, and now, it’s our responsibility to give back to it. we can only do that by trying to solve the society’s issues.

#Fixit is a very good platform which can benefit society. Let’s say a road is broken. To fix it, we won’t take money from that area’s people. In fact, #Fixit will raise funds and then go and repair it, only so that that area’s people or that road’s users can use it without fear.

Q: Do you think that all of Pakistan’s major problems will be solved in the future?

You see, the Safeguard soap or other soaps, target against germs. So when I was small, the ad told us that the germs are powerful, so use Safeguard against them and 99.999….% germs will be vanquished and a small percent would be left. Now the ad tells us that the small percentage left have become so advanced, that you need an advanced version of Safeguard to kill them. So now they have turned Safeguard into a really powerful soap for killing powerful germs.

Just like that, problems will be there. Even if today we solve all the road, grafiti, and trash problems, there will still be even bigger problems to solve. You can never say problems will be completely solved, because there is no such term as perfection in the society. You will always find problems somewhere.

Thank you for your time, Ms. Sobia, and I sincerely hope you enjoyed it.

For even more information, check out #Fixit’s Facebook and Twitter pages.