Learning to Lead Through Care:
How Our Eid Gifts Project for Boys Turned Play Into Community Power
At SFY, we often remind ourselves that leadership is learned where responsibility meets care. This Eid, our Eid Gifts at Al Islah Center for Orphans Mardan offered us a clear reminder of what that looks like in practice. On 11 March 2026, in partnership with the Beaconhouse School System Mardan, we gathered at the Al Islah Center for Orphans, Mardan, to celebrate Eid with 32 orphaned boys from Playgroup to Grade 2. What unfolded was more than a gift distribution: it was a carefully organized space where joy, mentorship, and leadership came together.
The Eid Gifts Project is part of our Youth Ramadan Drive Series, where our grassroots leaders raise funds, identify institutions, plan logistics, and lead community rooted action. For this project, our goal was clear: to ensure that young boys: often left on the margins of celebration: experienced Eid as a moment of dignity, belonging, and excitement. We also committed to something equally important: creating an environment where our volunteers could practice leadership through presence, patience, and responsibility.
What We Did: and Why We Did It This Way
Preparation began well before project day. Our team identified potential vendors, and handpicked gifts from Raja Bazaar, Islamabad, prioritizing quality, durability, and relevance: new clothes, watches, and shoes that the children could use and take pride in. Dozens of volunteers, students, and teachers from Beaconhouse School System joined us in packing the gift bags, emphasizing partnership and shared ownership from the very start.
On the day of the event, our SFY leaders and Beaconhouse volunteers broke their fasts with the children, offered Namaz together, and then transitioned into activities designed to encourage discipline, cooperation, and joyful expression. Musical chairs: played with rhythmic clapping instead of music: opened the evening. Winners received small prizes, but the real takeaway was participation. We then organized a drawing competition, dividing the children into teams to promote collaboration. Judges Sir Shah Jehan and Armaghan assessed the artwork, while volunteers guided the teams and kept spirits high.
Later, the children enjoyed supervised PS4 gaming, a modern, joyous, and exciting experience many had never encountered. We chose to include this intentionally: not as indulgence, but as recognition. Dignity includes access to joy, curiosity, and shared play. To close the event, Sir Shah Jehan and Sir Shomail distributed the Eid gifts. Many boys immediately put on their new shoes and watches: small gestures that spoke volumes about pride and ownership.
Leadership as Experiential Learning
For us at SFY, leadership development is not abstract. It is experiential. Through this project, our leaders practiced real skills: fundraising, budgeting, procurement, logistics, time management, team coordination, safeguarding, and adaptive decision making. Young organizers learned how to read a room, manage energy, set boundaries, and remain attentive to children’s needs throughout the event.
Importantly, this project also engaged volunteers, especially young women, in leadership roles within a male dominated setting. They led market research, purchasing, packaging, and coordination, demonstrating confidence, clarity, and competence. These moments matter. They quietly reshape norms and expand what leadership looks like in public, community spaces.
Reducing Power Disparities Through Community Led Action
This project reduced power disparities by placing responsibility in the hands of local leaders. Our team members are residents of Mardan. They understood the realities of the children and the institution, and their involvement ensured the project was relevant, respectful, and rooted in lived experience.
Rather than relying solely on external support, we emphasized participatory decision making: from identifying the institution to designing activities. By partnering with Beaconhouse, we pooled resources and aligned values, creating a collaboration that strengthened both institutions while centering the community.
Why This Work Matters to Us
At SFY, we believe that empowerment must be holistic. It is not enough to meet material needs; emotional wellbeing, dignity, and belonging are essential. By organizing structured play alongside gift distribution, we created a space where boys could simply be children: laughing, competing, and connecting.
This project reflects our vision at SFY: to decrease power disparities through grassroots leadership and participatory praxis. When young people organize care with discipline and intention, they begin to see themselves as capable actors in their communities. That shift: from observer to organizer: is where lasting change begins.
With Gratitude
We extend our sincere thanks to everyone who made this initiative possible. Special appreciation goes to Armaghan Ahmed (SFY) and Sir Shah Jehan (Beaconhouse) for their leadership, along with SFY leaders Mahmood Bacha, Ziam, Zaid, and Fardan.
We are also grateful to Beaconhouse volunteer leaders: Sir Shomail, Ashir, Mustafa, Ashban Eric, and Emos Joseph: for their commitment and collaboration.
Together, we are learning that leadership, like Eid, is something we practice: anchored in care, shaped by responsibility, and strengthened through community.
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About SFY
Society For Youth (SFY) is a non-profit organization committed to fostering sustainable community development through grassroots organizing, education, and empowering local leadership. SFY’s broad-based model emphasizes relationality and collective action, working to address complex social challenges and build resilient communities from within.
To learn more about our work, donate, or support our mission, please feel free to reach out to us via info@society4youth.org.