Christian schools supported by Barnabas Aid provide safety, strength and learning for impoverished and marginalised Christian children in Pakistan.
Many Barnabas-funded schools have just a simple, single classroom, yet provide the teaching that changes young lives
“This school is not just a place of learning; it is a place of healing. It gives me confidence, hope, and the strength to believe that my life can be different.”
These are the heartfelt words of 13-year-old Asma, a Christian girl trapped with her family in bonded labour amid the hardship, slavery and grinding poverty of one of Pakistan’s thousands of brick kilns.
In her message to Barnabas Aid, Asma thanks you, our supporters, for helping to provide the essential funding for the Christian school she attends.
Safety, love and a better future
The school is a haven from the brick kilns, and the beatings she suffers there. Outside of school, Asma must help her widowed mother and her three older brothers to make bricks so that the family can keep up the repayments for loans taken from the kiln owner simply to meet their essential daily needs.
“Because of this school, I dream again,” writes Asma. “I believe that God used the [Barnabas] supporters and [project] partners to open this school for children like me – children who need safety, love and a chance to build a better future.”
Asma with her widowed mother Sheeda, who has laboured in the brick kilns for 35 years. Burdened by debt, she still works there now, at the age of 60
In 2025, Barnabas funded 55 Christian schools in Pakistan, enabling more than 4,120 marginalised young Christians like Asma to receive the education that can help them escape from the cycle of poverty and illiteracy that has trapped previous generations.
Barnabas-funded schools charge little or no fees enabling children from even the poorest Christian families to attend. Many also provide free textbooks, stationery and uniforms.
Read more: Please support school places for Christian children in Pakistan’s brick kilns
Unlike mainstream schools, where Islam is taught and young believers are often despised for their faith, Barnabas schools employ only Christian teachers, who encourage pupils to grow in their love of Jesus Christ.
Many Barnabas-funded schools are little more than single rooms, with bare brick walls and threadbare rugs on the floor, but for pupils they are places of hope.
Pressure to convert
“Even in these hard times, we thank Jesus for our school,” says Armaan, whose family works in the brick kilns. Like many workers struggling on subsistence level wages, Armaan’s father has borrowed money in times of crisis from the brick kiln owners.
Because of this debt, family members are often treated badly by the owners, and sometimes feel scared and unsafe. “The owners put pressure on us and try to force us to become Muslim,” explains Armaan, “But my father always refuses because we are Christians and want to remain faithful to our beliefs.”
Thanks to our supporters, Armaan has a refuge at a Barnabas-funded school, where he receives free education. “The teachers support us here,” he says thankfully, “and give us hope for a better future.”
00-794 (Christian Schooling for Christian Children)
How you can pray
Praise the Lord that Barnabas-funded Christian schools are giving Christian children hope for a better future. Ask that education will prove a blessing to the whole Christian community in Pakistan. Pray that our young brothers and sisters will grow not only in their acdemic knowledge, but also in the knowledge of their Lord and Saviour.
