Feroza/Fatima Parish – Sameul Masih is 26 years old and lives in Father Riaz’s parish. He is the father of two children. Unfortunately, his wife is ill and unable to work. Sameul really lived from hand to mouth. He worked as an unskilled labourer in the laundry and earned very little. In addition, the laundry kept laying off unskilled labourers like Sameul when there was not enough work.
Sameul wanted to do everything he could to offer his family a better livelihood with a steady income, closer to his family, as he had to look after his wife and children.
He learnt about an apprenticeship to become a car mechanic.
This led him to the Technical Skill Centre funded by CiN, where he met Father Riaz and his team, who gave him a warm welcome. Shahid enrolled on the car mechanic course, which began in October 2022 and ended in March 2023. He successfully completed the six-month course.
Sameul was very confident that he would be able to get a job in a car repair shop after the final exam. So he visited many garages near his village and finally got a job in a garage. Sameul reports: “The owner of the workshop offered me a job with a monthly salary of PKR 16,000 (around EUR 55) and I was happy that it would be increased after three months.
After three months, the owner was satisfied and increased my salary after seeing my performance and skills in repairing motorbikes. Now I am earning PKR 19,000, which seems very good to me compared to laundry work. For me, it is a blessing that God helped me through the angels on earth and I successfully completed the qualification course and got a job.”
Sameul has a very high opinion of the training courses that Father Riaz runs together with our employee Neha: “The initiative of Father Riaz and his team with financial support from CiN is very helpful for poor people like me, and people in our community are taking advantage of these courses, which are very effective and remarkable. I am very grateful to CiN for giving me the opportunity to improve my skills and standard of living.”
The expansion of the courses to include young men (and not just girls) was only possible because donors and a congregation of sisters from Vienna support these courses. Every euro thus becomes a blessing for a better future for desperate people like Sameul.