The Citizens Foundation

Empowering Dreams through Education

The Citizens Foundation (TCF) is a professionally managed non-profit organization that builds and operates low-cost formal schools in the urban slums and rural areas of Pakistan. The Economist has called TCF "perhaps the largest network of independently run schools in the world." Since its inception in 1996, TCF has established 1,567 school units in 700 sites across Pakistan where children were previously out-of-school. Currently, TCF has on enrolment 252,000 deserving students, nearly half (48%) of whom are girls. The Foundation is the largest private employer of women in Pakistan with an all-female faculty of 12,000 teachers and principals.

Going forward TCF aims to reach 2 million learners by 2030. 

TCF has been recognized internationally. In 2017 it won the UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy. In 2015, TCF was selected as a Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2013, TCF won the Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurs. 

Most recently, TCF has been selected among the top 25 global development projects to be showcased at the Expo 2020 Dubai’s Global Best Practice Programme, ‘Small Steps, Big Leaps’, Solutions for Sustainable Impact.

In UAE, TCF is registered with the International Humanitarian City (IHC) in Dubai.