Abstract

The present study has evaluated the current situation of youth social work in Karachi as well highlights the importance and key issues faced by working youth in the country. A qualitative methodology has been used for the current studty. The researcher has selected ten respondents having at least 5-10 years of experience from the education sector of Karachi. A set of 5 questions were developed that targeted the themes of gendered biasness, communication issues, safety threats, and concerns, funding problems and the impact of governmental restrictions and unrest. The results of the study highlight the vitality of communication in social organizations in order to resolve the barriers. The main safety concerns to the NGOs are from the religious and societal extremists. The government hasn’t supported the developmental and relief initiatives of the social organizations and therefore funding issues are faced by most of the institutions. The study has bridged the importance of the necessity to commence dialogue on a tabooed issue for the development and betterment of the youth of the country.

Key Words

Karachi, Pakistan, Social Work, Youth Development

Introduction

Modern day social work is deeply rooted in the current social institution and social environments. Due to the increased social and economic challenges in developing countries, practicing social work is becoming more complicated. The common barriers observed in the field of social work are embedded in political, economic, and social changes. These barriers are the major hindrances in providing services to the people by social workers. Like all other developing countries, Pakistan is facing challenging times in regard to economic, social, and political conditions (Ahmed, 2016; Mamoon, 2019; Valasai et al., 2017). The rapidly increasing crime rate, depletion of natural resources, agricultural deterioration, power shortages, and other issues like severe human right violation and sufferings of the common man are some of the highlighted issues in this country (Munir&Asghar, 2017; Tabassum, Batool, Ameen, & Hassan, 2019).

Amidst this myriad of issues, hope still exists in the people for a better tomorrow and there is expectation and predictions that accomplishment and triumph are in route for this country. Consequently, the burden of these expectations lands on the young generation's tender shoulders and they are seen as the way towards nation building and to bring the state of affairs back on track. However, the youth of this unfortunate country faced also with abundant issues and problems and they need a lot of social support, help, and guidance to become able of playing the proactive roles that are expected of them in order to change things for better. Social workers in this regard play a huge part in youth betterment and empowerment. Due to the central role of youth in the welfare and betterment of the country, it is the duty of the social welfare groups and social work communities of a country to work for the engagement, empowerment, and support of youth. The government and non-government institutions need to work to design better policies that can engage the Youth in the right direction with the aim of preparing them for playing their due role in society. They need to be empowered with tons of skills and capabilities to fight social evils like poverty and unemployment and mental and physical health issues as well (Batool, 2013).

Many of the surveys indicate that financial scarcity is also affecting the performance of social workers along with the quality of social services. In the current scenario of youth being the major population mass, it is a major drawback for the economy and society of this developing country that most of this population is inactive and not participating in the marketplace in any role. Social workers in Pakistani social agencies are paying special attention to the social work techniques and strategies, which can facilitate them in providing assistance to the youth. (Ahmad, 2014). If these challenges in practicing social work are not resolved, the youth of Karachi may as well be left behind, which is indicative of the country is being left behind. The growing tension between youth and social workers, therefore poses a tremendous challenge for the country, its government, and the NGOs as well. In order to find out the real situation of Pakistani youth, the biggest city of the country, i.e., Karachi has been chosen for the collection of data, as well as for the analysis of the situation of the youth. This city has been selected for the research because its population is 16,459,000, and with such a huge number of people living in the area, it is bound to have a major amount of youth as well. This research aims to find the current challenges of social workers working with youth in Karachi, Pakistan, because try as they might, these social workers are unable to get enough support or responses from youth.

The basic focus of social work is to strive for the fulfillment of the needs of people and to help them in enhancing their human capacities and capabilities so that they can make the surrounding environment favorable for themselves (Spector &Kitsuse, 2017). The work ethics of a social worker have revolved the concepts of equality, individual dignity, worth of life, and individuals and honesty (Baldwin, 2016). Youth serves as the backbone of any nation. The young generation is responsible for playing an important role in the development of society. Pakistan currently has the largest ever population of youth where 64 percent of the population belongs to below 30 ages and about 29% of the population lies between the ages 15 and 29 (Sathar, Kamran, Sadiq, & Hussain, 2016). Karachi, being the largest city in the country, the center of research for this study. The reason behind this is that the great population of Karachi, including youth, makes them a viable source of development in Pakistan but this young and able workforce is mostly inactive and does not have the required opportunities that they need to shine and to contribute to the societal and economic development.

There are many NGOs that are working for the empowerment of youth in Karachi, Pakistan: We-the-Youth, YDF, YES, and PYO are a few of these NGOs. These organizations are working for the improvement of the education system and for spreading awareness of the importance of education for the youth and its impact on the economy and social environment of the country (Khan, Kanwal, & Wang, 2018). When it comes to specifically discussing the relevance of the research in the region of Karachi, Pakistan, it is extremely important to understand that the youth of this city is recognized to be quite suppressed. The youth of Karachi is forced to become a part of an educational system that is biased, to begin with, and are often pressured by their families to study fields that they are not interested in. It is not the only issue, though, as there are very few jobs and chances of career development (Ahmad, 2014). All these factors are hugely affecting their engagement with the social workers. Due to the recurring social work challenges and issues, the youth is not as empowered as needed, which is why this research is relevant.




Research Objectives

1. To analyze the youth’s situation in Karachi.

2. To investigate the prevalent work situations for social workers working for the empowerment, engagement, and betterment of youth in Karachi.

3. To outline the issues and problems that a social worker faces while working towards youth in Karachi.




Research Questions

1. How important is social work for the youth of Karachi?

2. What are the challenges and problems that a social worker faces while working towards youth empowerment, engagement and betterment in Karachi?

3. What are the ways in which this area of study can be improved in the future? 

Literature Review

According to the UNDP report, Pakistan currently has the largest youth population in its history. It is considered as the second-youngest state in the South Asian region after Afghanistan. The National Human Development Report (2017) stated that the total population of 64% and 29% lie between the age group of 15-29 years. Such a massive increase in the youth population increased many challenges and opportunities for them to gain equal opportunity and standard of life. In 2015, 9.45 million children were at the primary level which was increased by 3.8% in 2030. In the current scenario, there is an urgent need to create 4.5 million job opportunities over the upcoming five years and to enroll the millions of out of school children to utilize 64% of the youth bulge to gain more opportunities for the economy with the aim to grow faster and sustainably (NHDR, 2017). The largest and most populous city of Pakistan is Karachi, which is why it has been selected for the purposes of research in this study.

Sarwat Rauf (2019) stated that youth play a major role in the effective promotion of good governance in Pakistan. According to him, the development of this state is in the hands of its fresh blood who are more energetic and talented than the other ones. But due to lack of opportunities, the dearth of proper supervision, and fewer capacity misguide them towards the wrong direction and they commit crime. According to these scholars, the majority of the crime is committed by undergraduate or youth, so in that case character building, educational institute, and social media is an effective approach to give them the right direction towards the state's development (Rauf 2019). In order to resolve this social issue in this state, Sakina Riaz majorly highlights some effective solutions that will create new opportunities in front of this age group, and the development of social work as a discipline is one of them. According to Riaz's explanatory research-based documentary analysis, such advanced discipline will create new development projects within this society, and the majority of the societal issues like rape, robbery, domestic violence, murder and other related ones will be resolved and its socioeconomic phase will become enhance (Riaz 2016). As all the social issues call the attention of social institutions, many of the researchers also interpreted these relations in the context of social worker-youth relationship. The studies demonstrate that social workers face a challenging time when it comes to such grave youth social crimes. To tackle such issues, more comprehensive and careful social strategies are required in the field.  

Khalid and Asad (2019) also worked on exploring the youth perception regarding the judiciary system of Pakistan that 60% of the overall population consists of youth, working people, and adults within 15-64 years old. In this ratio, the majority of women are unemployed which further slowdown the economic development of this state. According to scholars, there are short life expectancy, poor health care facilities and low level of education, which is essential for human existence. In such a situation, the society-oriented NGOs and other communities are struggling to overcome different societal issues related to the Pakistani Youth. The gender-discrimination in the context of education and social empowerment needs sheer attention from the present scholars.  (Iraqi and Hyder 2019, Khalid and Asad 2019). 

Bagchi, et al (2018) says that in the MENAP region, which consists of the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, as well as Pakistan, there is a high number of youth unemployment. According to this research, it causes an increase in domestic terrorism. It is directly related to the quality of democracy, and negatively connected to the stability of the political condition of the countries (Bagchi, 2018). Not only this, but youth unemployment causes an increase in crime rates like robbery, thievery, and other ways to attaining resources for survival in the current economy. The political and economic instability, therefore have a huge impact on the social welfare practices when it comes to youth.  Due to the severe outcomes of such political instability and emerging crimes, many of social workers step back and show unwillingness to tackle such youth crimes. As a result of this, the social dogma remained unpracticed in many institutions. 

In Pakistan where a large number of graduates pass out in each year and the lack of job opportunities within this state, creates major societal issues in front of the administration. Many types of research have been made to explore the number of youth-oriented societal issues resolved by many social activists and organizations. In Pakistan, The Citizen Foundation (TCF) is one of the largest education-oriented non-profit organizations whose major aim to provide standard education to underprivileged youth. According to the statistics, there have been 1202 operational school units that provide education to 175000 students nationwide in the year 2016 (Khan & Tabish, 2018). It is an important organization for Karachi, because it is operational in the city as well as understands the necessities of its youth. Acharya Soumen (2019) in the international journal regarding advanced research in management and social science stated that how much government policies regarding social NGOs play a major role to strengthen the future socio-economic approach within the state. According to these scholars (Acharya Soumen (2019), efficient social workers can bring a productive change in the societal mindset of a state, and secure their future.

These organizations mainly operate on charity. One of the most prominent targets of these organizations is the educational sector of Karachi. It may be because the city has extremely obvious educational issues regarding youth. The lack of career counseling and high educational and financial requirements for universities and college admissions has become a hindrance in the path of most people. These foundations not only promote higher education and career counseling, but they also promote education as a whole, because a majority of Karachiites are still reluctant to send their children off to schools or colleges. It causes an increase in the illiteracy rate of the city and ultimately the country (Ahmad, 2014).

Youth in Karachi do not have jobs, healthy recreational activities, health resources and awareness. The hindrances caused by these problems increase day by day. This is a good time to look at youth issues and provide practical solutions otherwise it will be too late. Also, Sathar and others (2016) stated that there is a need of great intervention of the government and nongovernmental stakeholders for the youth development in order to address youth issue within this state (Sathar, Kamran et al. 2016, Khuwaja, Karmaliani et al. 2019). In this state, the unequal distribution and unusual involvement of external stakeholders in the economic and social activities within this state result in many youth-oriented issues. Krstovic (2017) also highlighted different issues faced by the youth in this state due to a lack of proper strategical approach. According to Krstovic (2017), there is a need to develop critical thinking based strategic approach among students in their decisions regarding their education, career and other important factors. Krstovic (2017) stated that organizing the science and technology-based education is the best way to encourage students to utilize their information for the betterment of this nation (Krstovic 2017).

In previous researches, many researches has been made on exploring the importance of youth intention in the societal development and how the lack of involvement creates major issue in front of the NGOs to run an effective society(Collison and Marchesseault, 2018, Driskell, 2017, O’Leary, 2017, Van Ngo et al., 2017). Well, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and other social media sites have now become major necessities of today's individual, but their excessive usage also caused a negative impact on the wellbeing of a young generation in the future career perspective. According to Tariq, Hafeez and Fasih the major intension of youngsters in Facebook usage distracts them from their right path, and their addiction results in reducing the engagement level with the state's social activities. According to Tariq, Sajjad, if this influence would not be controlled then it becomes quite difficult to develop the intension of young generation towards societal projects and wellbeing's. But if this site is used for an effective awareness perspective, then the youth interact towards their societal goals can be enhanced (Tariq, Sajjad et al. 2017, Hafeez and Fasih 2018).

Other issues that social workers face in engaging the youths of Karachi in social work activities is that they are not safe. Karachi has been susceptible to terrorism attacks and hate crimes for more than the past two decades. People are shot during target killings, women are harassed on the street, people’s belongings are taken away from them in robberies, and various other forms of crimes are the cause of fear behind going outside the house (Bagchi, 2018). This fear does not only hinder the progress of social workers in the educational sector, but it also causes the youths of Karachi to stay as far away from the spotlight as possible. Furthermore, these social workers are not even funded to begin with. They are not provided with sufficient resources to successfully carry out social work activities. The government, as always, remains uninterested in the condition of Karachi’s youth. Instead, their focus is on the political condition of the city, which is unstable. Karachi is not only the largest city of the country, but it also provides the most revenue to it. It is the main reason why all political parties want to rule over this region. This causes a dangerous political situation in the city, causing a lack of interest of youths in social work, and an increased interest in the unstable political conditions (Saud, 2020).

Discussion and Analysis

Demographical Profile

There was a total of 15 respondents included in the study. These respondents belonged to five different sectors of the non-profit and social welfare construct of the country. All of the respondents were based in Karachi and were working in the education, rehabilitation, emergency response, women rehabilitation and social welfare sectors. These participants were inquired upon their relationship and association with the youth development and found that all of them were working towards the youth development or frequently encountered the youth demographic of the city of Karachi. Also, most of these social workers were based in Karachi i.e., their concerned NGOs and social work centers were operational in Karachi and is spite of the fact that for the purpose of their work these social agents travelled to different areas of the country, their foundation are based primarily in Karachi.




 

Table 1.

	Sector	Gender	Age	Experience
1	Education	Female	25-45	10 years
		Female	25-45	8 years
		Male	25-45	15 years
2	Rehabilitation	Male	25-45	10 years
		Male	25-45	10 years
		Female	25-45	7 years
3	Emergency response	Male	25-45	11 years
		Female	25-45	15 years
		Male	25-45	15 years
4	Women rehabilitation	Female	25-45	10 years
		Female	25-45	8 years
		Male	25-45	8 years
5	Social welfare	Male	25-45	15 years
		Male	25-45	10 years
		Female	25-45	12 years

 




The above table shows the gender, age and experience of the participants of the study. It can be seen that 7 out of the 15 interviewed social workers were females and the remaining 8 were male. There is no gender bias in the sample. Most of the participants were reluctant on providing their actual age range, and therefore a homogenized metric for them was established and they informed that all of them belonged to the 25-45 age group. Also, in terms of experience it can be seen that the experience of the social workers ranged from 7-15 years. the respondents were all in senior roles and were very much involved in the work with the youth demographic of the city of Karachi and its neighboring areas.

 

Thematic Analysis

The qualitative research question explored in the present study is that how the social workers are influencing the youth of Pakistan and what kind of challenges are central to the operation of the not-for-profit organizations working in Pakistan. The content analysis of participant interviews revealed six main factors that included funding barriers, security threats, political interference, communication issues, lack of awareness, and gender bias in the sector.

The description of themes, categories, and sub-categories are presented and unpacked through a series of quotations and reflections on the participants’ interviews. The excerpts of the interviews were corrected, for readability, where needed to promote a better understanding by the readers without changing the original meanings. Anonymity of the study participants has been ensured by providing them with code numbers as identifiers. As it can be seen, there is a common overarching theme among the answers of all of the participants of the study. A theme-wise breakdown of these results is discussed as follows.

Theme 1: Education Centric

Sub-theme 1: Nature of work

Category 1

The main area of the work for this sector involves finding the children and youth in need of assistance and support. For this purpose, we scan the streets, slums and rural areas central to the areas under our operations and help them in enrolling in our schools and colleges.

 

Category 2

The main relevance of this sector of work is with ending the illiteracy in the country. The sector is working towards and is committed towards the eradication of illiteracy in the country and mainly focuses upon helping the youth in the slums and rural areas to get quality education.

According to one respondent

“By encouraging the youth from these areas and encouraging them to gain education we are helping them change their lives and the lives of their families. The vocational centers, colleges and secondary schools under the banner of our support and being run on then mission to enable the youth of Pakistan to become self-sufficient and educated”.

 

Sub theme 2: Challenges

Category 1

Hurdles in Interactions

There is a huge problem of communication in social work in Karachi. People from different ethnicities come together in Karachi. They speak and understand different languages as well. It causes issues for social workers to convey their messages in a single language. This problem weakens the impact of social workers on Karachi’s youths, as most of them are unable to understand their speeches. The formation of a community is difficult in Karachi, as youths come from differing ethnic backgrounds. It causes them to create sub-groups within the communities, which reduces unity and consensus

 

Category 2

Lack of Security

Social workers continually face security issues in Karachi. Religious extremists in Karachi pose as a major threat against social workers. They often imply that religious education is mandatory, while worldly education is foul. Religious extremists also prevent social workers from enhancing youths’ lives by aggression.

Social workers are not given security by the government. They have to pay hefty amounts to private security guards, otherwise they must carry out social work events without any safety. There is already a lack of funding in social organizations, which further contributes to the lack of security measures for the workers.

 

Biased System for men

There is a systemic bias for men in social work. Men are given better and higher paying positions in social work as compared to women. Men take leading roles in such situations as well. It reduces the interest of female social workers in the profession. Women are oppressed in social work conditions. They are not paid well enough, and are not brought to the frontlines in terms of credits. As discussed before, there are more job opportunities for men as compared to women in social work sectors. As a result, there are fewer women and more men social workers.

 

Theme 2: Rehabilitation centers

Sub-Theme 1: Nature of Work

Category 1:

These centers deal with the addiction patients and actively try to help the youth in being aware of the harmful effects due to the usage of drugs. Social media posts, seminars and other events are the main source for generating awareness. Also, these organizations lead recuperation centers where the addicts can recover in peace.

 

Category 2

According to one of the respondents

“We offer secure and safe environment to the youth so that they can recover, recuperate and get better. We also offer volunteer programs to the aspiring medicine students and other young adults interested in working for a decent cause”

 

Sub-theme 2: Challenges

Category 1: Security

In terms of gender bias, it has been common for the men to be appointed in roles that are considered tough and rough. In a study by Ambrose-Miller and Ashcroft (2016) identified power dynamics, role clarification and culture as major challenges to the social workers as members of the inter professional healthcare. Similarly, in the context of the Pakistani society there are certain roles that are appointed to each gender. The drug addicts become violent and can pose serious harm to the wellbeing of the female workers.

 

Category 2: Communication

Communication is fundamental for resolving any issue and yet it is one of the most frequent challenge faced by the social workers from all aspects and various sectors (Ambrose-Miller and Ashcroft, 2016, Alpaslan and Schenck, 2012, Ruch, 2014, Khalid and Asad, 2019)

 

Theme 3: Social welfare Organizations

Subtheme 1: Nature

These are the NGOs that have provided care facilities and ambulances for transference of victims of crimes like physical attacks, robberies, rape, abuse, burn and acid attacks etc. In an attempt to explain the working of the NGOs from this sector.

 

Subtheme 2: Challenges

Category 1: Security

One of the main challenges to this line of work is removing the hesitancy from the male and female staff for dealing with the victims. It is understandable that the nature and breadth of most of these cases that are dealt by the social welfare organizations are against women, girls and children, but in order to create an inclusive society concerned for and focused towards helping these afflicted people we need to disparage the gender roles.

 

Category 2: Communication

There are a number of challenges faced by these organizations. One of the main challenges are learning to communicate with the abuse victims. These are young people and their minds and bodies have already been scarred due to the severity of the crime against them. According to Ruch (2014), the communication process should be thought over and humanized in order to help them recover as soon as possible.

Theme 4: Emergency Response

Subtheme 1: nature of Work

Category 1: Domain

Help and provide assistance for the needy people of the society. They are included among the first responders and help the people displaced due to disasters and any other issue find shelter, food and water. The first responders are an important segment of the not-for-profit sector and offer benefit to different people. These mainly respond to emergency situations and or disasters and provide help to the displaced people.

 

Category 2: Involvement with the Youth

According to Khalid and Asad (2019) for necessitating essential youth development, it is important that they become part of the societal agencies and work for the betterment and recuperation of the society. The emergency and disaster response teams offer the youth essential opportunities for societal benefit. Also, most of the respondents revealed that they come across the young people in many situations and offer them effective chances to become a part of a greater purpose.

 

Category 3: Threats and Challenges

One of the major challenges in this field is that the people are unwilling to start a discussion on sensitive topics, even in our arena of workers there are some people who feel uncomfortable in being part of the cases or discussions in sensitive topics. Also, these are issues not just central to Karachi, but can be realized in all of the areas of social work in Pakistan. 

 

Theme 5: Women Empowerment and Health Awareness

Subtheme 1

Category 1: Nature

This sector is mainly concerned with empowering women and informing them of their basic rights. They are provided with information related to menstruation, sexual health, physical health, family planning, basic rights, protection against abuse etc.

 

Category 2: Involvement with the Youth

The social workers from our divisions visit the areas under our jurisdictions and go from door to door to inform the women of these basic rights and information. Also, we arrange camps, seminars etc. in rural and urban locations. We also work through social media and develop different campaigns for the sake of our cause

 

Subtheme 2

Category 1: Communication

As it is among one of the most progressive issues being raised and informed, the workers and organizations are viewed with anxiousness. In order to overcome all of the difficulties being addressed by the NGOs should be to use efficient communication skills as they can play a major role to motivate them to learn about new things that is favorable for themselves.

 

Category 2: Challenges

The issues addressed by the women centric organizations are often triggers for the societal members and also the religious extremists. The workers have to bear with harassment, threats to self and family as well as threats to the audience that is interested to work with these organizations and in many cases in the city and countrywide can be seen in which the workers in our field have been a victim of targeted killing.

After critically evaluate the qualitative data-based authentic outcomes from different social welfare sectors within Pakistani state perspective, it becomes clear that majority of them shown their experienced-based reliable outcomes to exaggerate the number of challenges which they faced when dealing with youth welfare. Like the major sectors considered for this essential research are related to education, social welfare, humanitarian, women-centric, and rehabilitation. All these sectors are somehow different in their niche but somehow faced the same socio-economic issues within the Pakistan state.

According to its first interview-question outcomes, communication is the major issue faced by majority of the social activists like the education promoting NGO's managerial bodies stated that different speaking languages and lack of proper education among majority of its population create a major issue for NGOs' workers to actively fulfill their tasks.

The second open-ended question which majorly based on exposing the security-focused challenging situation of social workers that may create a major issue in front of them to confidently accomplish all their activities. Like according to education sector-based social workers' opinion, the religious extremists especially in the rural uneducated area caused a major security issue in front of them to convey their messages to those people. They majorly discussed the Pakistani northern rural areas-based illiteracy in their responses that till now education is considered as a sin especially for girls. Such rural and tribal populations carrying their own regional language and not interested to give proper education to their children that's why majority of kids becomes beggars, streets kids, etc, and if any NGO is interested to change their way of thinking then they start threatening its working employees.

The third question is associated with exposing gender-based issues and benefits faced by current workers in the current diverse situation in which majority of NGOs faced the gender discrimination-based major issue in patriarchal society. Like according to education sector-based social activists' point of view, majority of the uneducated young females and women are feeling more comfortable to talk with female social workers as compared to males because of their religious norms and values that make a restriction on them. So, they majorly suggested the female social workers must be appointed as teaching role so that the confidence level and interaction of illiterate females and women can be upgraded.

The fourth one is directly related to exaggerate their economic and funding issues that they mostly faced in Pakistan society. According to their response-based analysis, it becomes concluded that all-around majority of these youth development promoting NGOs faced major financial issues in their efficient operating activities in current diverse economic situation of Pakistan. Like every NGO faced the scarcity of funding and financial resources due to lack of people's awareness and their interest to support the NGO's working, even the Pakistani government is unable to give proper moral and financial support to such working social workers who independently work on their own behalf. Like in the education sector based working NGOs who need proper and regular funding to fulfill the basic operations i.e., books, stationery, teachers' salary, building and other related needs. Especially, such kind of social working becomes more difficult in rural and tribal areas where the religious extremist community based patriarchal society created many hurdles to demotivate the efficient working of educational institutes.

In order to critically explored the last interview question based authentic outcomes that is related to expose the number of issues created due to political instability in Pakistan and governmental restrictions, then it becomes clear that majority of them majorly faced the leadership instability based uncertain issue that caused major chaos on their performance and efficient performance. Like according to their educational NGOs management's statement, they mostly operate in the open location in rural and tribal areas where the political unrest situation caused a major negative impact on their activities by directly hinders their developmental projects within this state and takes their youth to remain unaware of the substances that they are majorly trying to install in them. This shows that how much it is difficult for them to survive in that typical political ideology that majorly worked to mitigates the influence of cognitive therapy and the productive behavioral modification on youth.

Conclusion

After critically evaluate the current working NGOs' management point of view regarding the number of challenges faced in current Pakistani youth development projects, specicially in Karachi, it is concluded that majority of them majorly faced language issue, gender discrimination issue, illiteracy issue, religious extremism issue, security issue, lack of funding issue and even also the political instability issue within this state. In order to justify the problem statement of this dissertation, five major sectors are specifically considered to get the diversity-based authentic outcomes like Education, Social Welfare, Humanitarian, Women Centric, and Rehabilitation sectors are majorly considered for accurate data collection. Within this essential and authentic dissertation, a qualitative research design method is majorly considered in which different interviews are conducted with major respondents related to the field of education in which open-ended questions are asked from them to gain their experienced-based reliable outcomes. According to their responses, majority of the education-promoting social workers faced language issue, gender discrimination, lack of proper funding, political unrest, and even a security issue in their efficient working especially in rural and tribal areas of north-west Pakistan. Well, majority of social welfare majorly faced gender discrimination, diverse culture, lack of political support and funding issues because majority of such issues are associated with women and children, but lack of their powerful position caused a major barrier to proceed their cases. The third major sector is humanitarian which is mostly neglected by majority of political authorities and such lack of proper funding caused a major hurdle for the sustainable working of such NGOs. As far as the women-centric organizations' performance is concerned, it becomes clear that majority of patriarchal mindset individuals created a majorly barrier to run these NGOs in a more efficient way that result in lower funding, lower awareness, and other different security issues. Last, but not the least, the rehabilitation-focused social working activities also faced a major lack of proper funding and awareness among the rural and tribal areas where majority of males are drug addicts. This shows that overall, this dissertation is a productive source of information to open the eyes of Pakistani authorities and related local individuals to consider the youth development-related issues and challenges which majorly faced by the working NGOs, and need to be overcome.

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