The Hanging by a Wire Impact Campaign is an effort to benefit the eight people rescued in August 2023 from a cable car hanging 900 feet above a ravine in Battangai, northern Pakistan, as well as their wider community. Six of them were schoolboys. The campaign aims to put those six boys through a recognised technical education, help the two adult survivors earn a stable living, and bring a working health clinic to the valley they all returned to. The most urgent need is $26,275, which pays for three years of tuition, board, books and travel home for five of the students at $5,255 each, plus a one-year mechanics course and $100 a month in family support for the sixth. The campaign is also raising $5,255 for each of the two adult survivors to help them build their small businesses.
This campaign exists to raise public awareness of the conditions in the valley the survivors came home to, to fund the construction of a small medical facility there, and to help every survivor of the incident reach their education and career goals.
Six of the eight passengers were schoolboys on a routine commute. Two were young men working to keep their households fed. All eight returned to a valley in the mountains of northern Pakistan where a laborer's wage supports eight children, where the nearest functioning health facility is a single room staffed by one lab technician, and where finishing school is a question of money rather than ability.
The Hanging by a Wire Impact Campaign exists to convert the attention the film has drawn into two concrete, costed, locally-agreed outcomes: put the students through a recognised technical education, and bring the abandoned Basic Health Unit at Battangai back to life.
Neither is a symbolic gesture. Both have been scoped on the ground, with the college principal and the District Health Officer.
Full three-year sponsorship at a government technical college for five students, plus a one-year vocational course and family support for a sixth who left school at eighth grade. Costs are fully loaded — tuition, board, books, medical, stipend and travel home.
An unfinished concrete structure already stands in the village, abandoned. The District Health Officer has agreed to support its completion as a functioning Basic Health Unit — and to help secure staffing, including a Lady Health Visitor and a visiting doctor.
Figures supplied directly by the principal of the TEVTA college at Taxila, inflated at an estimated 5% per year. Every line below is included in the annual figure — there is no separate fee to find later.
| Academic year | Cost per student |
|---|---|
| 2026 | $1,667 |
| 2027 | $1,750 |
| 2028 | $1,838 |
| Three-year total | $5,255 |
Yearly inflation estimated at 5% annually.
Usama, Rizwan Ullah, Niaz Muhammad, Attaullah Shah and Irfan Ullah. Ibrar Ahmad's one-year mechanic course is costed separately, together with $100 per month to support his mother while he trains — $1,200 per year.
Six of the eight passengers were schoolboys. Five have finished or are finishing secondary school and are ready for a three-year diploma. The sixth left school at eighth grade and is working. Each profile below reflects where they stand today and what they have asked to study.
The other two passengers were grown men with young families. Education is not what they need. A small amount of capital placed into work they already know is — enough to turn a marginal living into a stable one.
TEVTA is the government authority responsible for technical and vocational education in Punjab. It runs a network of technical colleges, vocational institutes and service centres, and awards the Diploma of Associate Engineering (DAE) — a three-year post-matriculation qualification offered across 32 disciplines and certified by the Punjab Board of Technical Education.
The students would be placed at the TEVTA college at Taxila, whose principal has already quoted the full cost of sponsorship. It is a residential placement: the boys live on campus and return to Battangai every three months.
Mechatronics and Civil are established DAE disciplines — the exact subjects named by Attaullah, Irfan, Usama and Rizwan. Short vocational courses in auto and motorcycle mechanics run on the same system, which is the track Ibrar needs.
Battangai is remote and the households cannot absorb the cost of relocating a child. Hostel accommodation, food and travel home are built into the sponsorship figure, so the family carries nothing.
A DAE is a working qualification, not a certificate of attendance. It is recognised by employers across Pakistan and the Gulf, and it articulates onward into a four-year BS in Engineering Technology for anyone who wants to continue.
The college principal has been met, the costs have been quoted, and the placement has been discussed. This is not a cold approach — it is a plan waiting on funding.
A grey concrete structure of several rooms already stands in Battangai. It was never finished, and it lies abandoned. Beside it, a temporary one-room building operates as the village's Basic Health Unit — staffed by a single lab technician dispensing a handful of common medicines.
That is the entire health provision for the valley these boys came home to.
The unfinished structure has been surveyed and confirmed as viable to bring into use.
The District Health Officer has been met and supports the plan. He has offered to facilitate in any way needed — a fully operational BHU, a partial fit-out of a few rooms, or any government permissions required.
A builder needs to be taken to the site before a construction budget can be set. No figure will be published until that survey is complete.
The District Health Officer can be asked to appoint a Lady Health Visitor to the unit, and to arrange for a doctor to visit weekly.
In a valley where women's access to male clinicians is limited by distance and custom, a resident Lady Health Visitor is often the difference between a routine maternal check-up happening and not happening at all. It is the single highest-leverage appointment the unit can make — and the District Health Officer has indicated he can make it.
Fully costed by the college. Ready to commit.
Plus the one-year mechanic course, being costed.
$5,255 each, to help build their small businesses.
Costing follows the builder's site visit.