Galvanizing Adolescent School Girls to Join the Fight Against TB

Research shows a unfortunate trend of young adolescent girls in low income populations being particularly vulnerable to Tuberculosis (TB) in Pakistan. These girls are a difficult population to reach since several of them stop going to school and are not involved in many activities outside of their home.

The Kiran Sitara initiative is partnering with the Provincial Department of Education to train and motivate 10,000 secondary school girls in Karachi, Pakistan to enhance awareness and access to TB screening in their communities. These girls titled as “Kiran Sitaras” will be provided with training and development in key adolescent leadership skills such as negotiation, human rights, effective communication, critical thinking, and community mobilization along with basic TB knowledge. They will visit households in their neighbourhood and facilitate community TB screening camps. Any potential person with TB will then be linked to the nearest TB testing facility for free evaluation and treatment.

Through the Kiran Sitara initiative, we aim to impact 150,000 households and 1,000,000 difficult to access people in low income communities of Karachi. But more importantly we aspire to start an indigenous community movement against TB by empowering the next generation of women in Pakistan.