Barakat's work with our schools and literacy programs is concentrated in the South Asian countries of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. We are guided by our belief in the strength of a united South Asia. All three countries share historic, geographic, linguistic and cultural traditions. Despite this, there are few organizations that are working in all of them because their tumultuous past has found no resolution thus far. Barakat's work is a step towards opening channels of communication across borders as individuals from all three countries unite to realize their vision of a developed South Asia.

Barakat currently supports seven schools in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Its education programs benefit children from kindergarten through high school. In addition, Barakat helps fund literacy and women's empowerment programs as well as health initiatives that, among other things, increases access to clean water.

Barakat’s story began in 1987 with the inauguration of the Ersari Turkmen Weaving Project in the refugee camps of Haripur, in Pakistan. The Project was started by Jora Agha, an Ersari Turkmen from Afghanistan, and Chris Walter, a carpet manufacturer from Massachusetts, United States. This revolutionary rug revival project taught Ersari Turkmen weavers the ancient, forgotten skills and techniques of using vegetable dyes in carpet-production. A small grant from Cultural Survival provided the seed funding for the establishment of this project, which has since grown into Barakat, an organization that funds three schools in Pakistan, two in Afghanistan, two in India; and numerous environmental and educational projects in different countries around the globe.

1) Find visionary social innovators - Barakat has close ties with social innovators – people who genuinely care about the communities, who are familiar with the problems their communities face and who want to help their communities to become more healthy and self-sufficient. Social innovators tend to gravitate towards each other. Barakat works through these networks to find people capable of developing innovative programs that really help those in need.

2) Establish or find local innovative programs - Barakat works with these social innovators to identify unmet needs among marginalized groups. Sometimes there are already people working to address these needs. In these cases, Barakat provides these social innovators with support so that they can expand and improve what they are already doing. If there are not people already working to address the needs of a community, Barakat finds innovators to develop a program to address those needs.

3) Ensure programs have feasible strategic plans for reaching goals - Some innovators have less experience than others. Before agreeing to support a particular program, Barakat works with the innovators to ensure that they have a realistic plan for addressing the needs of the community. The plan must take a variety of factors into consideration. More importantly, the innovators in charge of the program must demonstrate that they are capable of adapting their plans to unforeseen challenges that are sure to present themselves.

4) Provide resources - To get things done, the innovators need resources – money, staff, partners, information, and knowledge. While innovators are remarkably capable of acquiring many resources on their own, Barakat responds to their requests for resources that are difficult for them to acquire on their own.

5) Monitor the programs - Barakat keeps an eye on the progress of the programs it supports by staying in close contact with the program directors and by dropping in to see the programs first-hand from time to time. We monitor our programs to ensure that they are accomplishing what they are supposed to be accomplishing, and to collaborate with the innovators to see if there are new ways in which Barakat’s support could assist them to further broaden and improve the impact their programs are having on people’s lives.