In today’s world, census plays the most important role to share and distribute the resources in between the population and serves as bench mark for all socio–economic development plans, administrative activities, demographic research and projection of population to meet future needs. The word "census" originated in ancient Rome from the Latin word censere ("to estimate"); a listing of citizens [to assess]; a periodic count of the population.
There are various methods used for Census (Population and Housing Census):
a) De facto methods: A de facto census is one that counts all persons as residents of the place they happen to be at the time the census is taken. In practice, de facto censuses are conducted in such a way that most people are counted in the places they usually live, but not always.
Advantage: Very clear and simple, international comparison are easy, the time taken is short and the information obtained is reliable.
Disadvantage: Floating population not counted, large number of trained and qualified personnel is required and mistakes occur because of rapid and fast method of enumeration.
b) De jure methods: When a de jure census is taken, there is always some uncertainty about what should be considered a person's usual or normal place of residence.
College students, for example, often live for 9 or 10 months in a year in the community where they attend college. Yet during summer months and holiday periods, they may live in the homes of their parents, which may be in different communities or states. Which is their usual place of residence?
Advantage: Due to availability of sufficient time, inaccuracies are reduced to the minimum, more questions can be asked, and the information obtained is dependable.
Disadvantage: Difficulty arises in the definition of temporary, and permanent, birth and death goes uncounted between the periods and it is difficult to count persons who have no permanent address.
Scope of Census:
i) Area to be covered
• Census will cover entire territory of the country.
ii) Population to be covered
• All persons living in the country at the time of census dates are enumerated. Foreign nationals are also enumerated except diplomatic personnel and their families.
iii) Questionnaire
• Different types of questionnaires or forms are used.
• The census information is collected through a questionnaire, which is administered by trained interviewers.
Topics to be covered in Census:
a) Demographic and Social Characteristics
• Age – Sex – Relationship to the head – Marital status
• Religion – Mother tongue (language) – Nationality
b) Educational Characteristics (for 5 years +)
• Literacy status – School attendance
• Level of education completed – Field of education
c) Geographical / Migration Characteristics
• Usual residence – District of birth
• Duration of continuous residence in district – District of previous residence
• Reason of migration
d) Economic Characteristics (for 10 years +)
• Usual Activity – Part time Activity – Occupation
• Industry Employment status – Reason of unemployment
e) Fertility / Mortality (females 15–49 years)
• No. of children ever born by sex
• No. of children still living by sex
• No. of children born during last 12 months by sex
f) Miscellaneous
• Nature and Type of Disability if any
• Holding of CNIC or Passport by persons of 18 years plus
g) Housing Characteristics
• Information about living quarters, number of rooms, sex of the owner, tenure status, period since constructed and construction material used in outer walls & roofs.
• Data on source of drinking water, source of lighting and cooking fuel used.
• Availability of proper kitchen, bathroom, latrine and type of latrine
• Media of information such as T.V., Radio, Newspaper, Telephone and Mobile
Delimitation of Census Areas:
For complete coverage and effective field supervision, the country should be delimited on a tier system.
The United Nations:
The United Nations defines the essential features of population and housing censuses as "individual enumeration, universality within a defined territory, simultaneity and defined periodicity", and recommends that population censuses be taken at least every 10 years.
Census and The Bible:
Censuses are also mentioned in the Bible. God commands a flat tax to be paid with the census in Exodus 30:11-16 for the upkeep of the Tabernacle. The Book of Numbers is named after the counting of the Israelite population (in Numbers 1-4) according to the house of the Fathers after the exodus from Egypt. A second census was taken while the Israelites were camped in the plains of Moab, in Numbers 26.
King David performed a census that produced disastrous results (in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21). His son, King Solomon, had all of the foreigners in Israel counted in 2 Chronicles 2:17.
The Gospel of Luke records Jesus being born during a census in Luke 2.
The most important aspect of Census for our Christian Community is that Central Government, Provincial Government, Local Government, Foreign Organizations, Local Organizations, Large Businesses, Charities and Private Departments can allocate funding on the basis of our census data and they can use the detail of the data to answer new questions and add to local and specialist knowledge. And once the finding is allocated our Christian Community can easily calculate and determine by using the census data that in which sector to invest or how many more Christian Schools, Colleges, Universities, Hospitals our community needs.
Secondly, when our Christian Community will publish their census data on the Internet with authenticity, the whole world can see and it will be easy for our Christian Community to fight for our rights and quota in different Government Organizations. And also Christian Organizations (I mean anyone) from all over the world can easily plan their Aid and Services in a specific sector of our Christian Community by accessing the census data on the Internet for example if my company wants to give Aid and Services in the Education sector and if we can access the census data on the Internet, we can easily plan by using our censuses Literacy Data Tabulations on our computers that where our Christian Community needs mostly and in which area or region of Pakistan we need to open and set the Educational Computer Centre’s and Computer Laboratories only for our Christian Youth. So, this means that Census are utmost important for our Christian Community in today’s world, you know that everything has a plan and everything goes by the plan. If we want to discuss any matter of our Christian Community on any level, we should have figures (numeration), we cannot say all the time (from more than 60-years) 2% or 3% etc; what is 2% or 3% it is nothing, it is a joke now! We should have proper figures with an authentic Demographic Profile by which I mean that we should have our Christian Community’s proper statistics characterizing our populations broken down by age, sex, growth rate, birth rate, death rate, migration rate, urbanization, infant mortality rate, fertility rate, literacy rate, education, health, hospital and income etc.
I have a question for our present Minster (MNA), Provincial Ministers, and Bishops Etc that if they will have a meeting with some high level delegations who wants to help our Christian Community in Pakistan and if one of the delegates asks a question that “What is the Literacy Rate in Balochistan Province of Christian Community in 2010-2013” or “What is the Fertility Rate in KPK Province of Christian Community from 2000 till now” just imagine what our leaders will answer; yes – you are right only “muteness” and even if they will give some figures or numbers those will be absolutely worthless and bogus, why? Because the last properly (so to say) conducted survey was held in 1981 in Pakistan and from then till now all figures are estimated (judge to be probable) and Christian Population was and is always in percentage never factual in all the books, documents and papers of Pakistan.
Before writing this article, I was reading some books on censuses and also surfing (browsing) the Internet to read and collect the information about the Censuses, its types, methodology, implementation and censuses in different countries and their results. But I was shocked that I cannot find any new or old Demographic profile for Christian Community in Pakistan and I was amazed that Indian Christian Community do have their. Even you can do this experiment, open Google in your PC, Laptop or Mobile and search “Muslim Community in America…” you will find 100s of websites showing all kinds of numbers and figures or search “Jewish Community in Europe…” again you will have thousands of results but unfortunately our Christian Community has only one result 1% or 2% or 3% which means nothing especially in 2013 or in the coming years.
So, this means that by having our latest “Demographic profile of Christian Community in Pakistan” our Leaders (Political and Spiritual) even our common Christian people can guide our Christian Community in a better position and in a proper way for example if we have our Community’s latest Age Structure figures (I mean how many 0-14 years (male / female), 15-24 years (male / female), 25-54 years (male / female), 55-64 years (male / female), 65 years and over (male / female)) we can easily decide that where (in which age group) to invest our Christian Community’s Savings, Funds or Aid, and which age group needs more attention and care and which after 5 years and how many youth “15-24 years (male / female) ?” we will have after 10 years e.g. 2025 and what should we do for them now, to get 100% out of our youth then. And again I will write that as our governments (central and provincial) assumed responsibility for schooling and welfare; we can ask them to use our census data for our community’s change for the better and progress in development and further in future by using actuarial estimates of our census we can project our population graphs and can plan for provision in local government projects and multinational projects also.
In the above paragraphs I have mentioned the words “Demographic Profile”, let me give you a very simple idea what it is – its features and its elements. A Demographic profile includes:
Total Count of Population – Age structure – Median age – Population growth rate – Birth rate – Death rate – Net migration rate – Urbanization – Provinces population – Major cities population – Sex ratio (Male / Female at birth, under 15 years, 15-64 years, 65 years and over) – Infant mortality rate – Life expectancy at birth – Total fertility rate – HIV/AIDS (adult prevalence rate) – HIV/AIDS (people living with HIV/AIDS) – HIV/AIDS (deaths) – Sanitation facility access – Major infectious diseases (food or waterborne diseases, vector borne diseases, animal contact disease etc) – Languages – Literacy – School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education) – Education expenditures – Maternal mortality rate – Children under the age of 5 years underweight – Health expenditures – Physicians density – Hospital bed density
Now you can imagine that if we can have the counts of the above mentioned features, we can have better plans for our next generation. I know that our churches also have some kind of data about their congregation but that is not enough, we should know that how many of us (male /female) are unemployed, how many children are not going to school, how many of us have no sanitation facilities, what kind of health facilities we have, what about our elderly population etc.
By wrapping up my thoughts – I will say that “A population without census is just like animals living in a jungle”.
Conducting Census
To conduct a Census is a painstaking task, needs many months of planning, large number of resources, thousands of man hours, governments help, involvement of multinational companies and agencies and most importantly funding because without finances or financial support it is impossible to conduct Census on large scale (all over the country) or even on a small scale (in a small town).
Roughly speaking, that the cost of such projects like Censuses can go in Millions of US$ or Billions of PKR, the cost usually includes the salaries of the Planners (Foreign and Local Staff), rent of the buildings and apartments hired for 6 months or more by Foreign staff, furniture and computing accessories (Desktops, Laptops, A4 and A3 Color LaserJet Printers, Plotters, Fax Machines, Telephone Lines, Internet and Intranet Connections, Stationery etc), electricity bills of that building and apartments, food and transportation costs and above all the Printing Cost.
But please, do not be afraid by reading all this above; why I am writing this article is to give our Christian Community of Pakistan a very simple and cost effective solution to conduct census all over Pakistan only in the Christian Community. As I was thinking about the solution – I got two best options/solutions that how to conduct census effectively, with authenticity and with low cost. Let me discuss these options in detail.
Solution / Option No.1:
We will not use any of the above mentioned methods of census in Part-I, because the ground realities are different for our Christian Community in Pakistan and also because of the security reasons. So, what I suggest is that in the coming month of November 2013, we will request every Church Leader in Pakistan to start giving an overview and importance of the census only for 1 or 2 minutes in their 1 hour speech and after 3 or 4 Sundays when the congregation will have some knowledge and understanding about the census, the church leader will announce the dates of the census. In the meanwhile, every Church leader will choose 8 – 10 people especially form the youth of his congregation which understands the Census process and even if nobody understands this process, I will also write the training articles on census later, which will help them to know this process much better. From these 8 – 10 people, he will make one a Team Leader for the Census Process to be held in April 2014. All these 8 – 10 people will be paid a salary until the end of the project. The team leader then can create a separate box in front of the church gate with the permission of his Church Leader and can request the people just to give 1 Rupee (who can afford only) as a donation for the cost of the Censuses Process only for 4 Sundays starting from the 1st till the 4th Sunday of December 2013. Likewise, this process will be repeated in every Cathedral, Church (Small or big) and at every place where the Christians get together for Sunday prayers in all over the Pakistan. As this learning process is going on, our Christian Leaders from every sector (Political, Spiritual and Organizational) will sit together and start discussing my Questionnaire (given below) as mentioned in Part-I and after appropriate amendments, editions and deletions when all these leaders will reach on a single point, where they all will agree and will finalize the Questionnaire then we will start giving training to our Team Leaders according to that Questionnaire and the Team Leader will train rest of his/her team members and so our Christian Community in Pakistan is ready now to carry out the Census in April 2014.
You must be thinking that why I have proposed the months December and April, because these are the only 2 months in which majority of our Christian Community attends the Church. Ok, let’s come back to our topic again, so we got December, January, February, March and April - 5 months for training, finalizing the Questionnaire and collecting and counting the donation. On the other hand I will start making a Data Entry System for the Finalized Questionnaire which is the most important task after the Census Data Collection is finished.
Let us discuss a little about Data Entry Process and Procedure. At present, Data Entry is the core part of the Census Process – when we fill all the Census Forms then we should compile them in a very safe manner and by writing all the information on the compiled packet and then packet should be taken to the Data Entry Department or Room where each and every form should be entered in a computer in some well defined Data Entry System or Program and when all the Data Entry is finished, we will have a cross check again with our filled forms to authenticate our Data Entry and after that we should make backups of that Data Entry and should put these backups in some safe place and then only we can say “Thanks God”, which means that we have finished our process successfully. Now, what is left is Data Analysis, which you can also say the Presentation Part or the Last Part of our census, which will be published throughout the world.
Let us discuss Data Analysis – by using this technique we will make our Christian Community’s Demographic Profile 2014, for example from the data entry by using data analysis methods we will find out how many Male/Female, their age group, Education, Employment, which area or city or province is more densely populated with Christian Community etc. So, by using Data Analysis we can get the conclusions and the required results. And also when big organizations will have some plans for our Christian Community they will ask our census data, which we already kept safely and we will provide them - from which by doing Data Analysis they can plan for example to built new homes, schools, hospitals etc.
I am sure after reading all this above, you must have some vague idea about the census and how we can conduct it in our Christian Community of Pakistan. Now let us go in depth of carrying on the census in our Christian Community of Pakistan, as I have already mentioned about training process, questionnaire, data entry and analysis after finalizing all these processes we will start The Census day from 1st – 4th Sunday of April 2014 throughout the Pakistan. But let us halt ourselves for sometime here and let us discuss our donations which we have collected in the month December 2013, now all my calculations below will be based on assumptions of our estimated statistics of population because we do not have any kind of proper census from more than 30 years in Pakistan but hopefully I think my calculations will be very near to the reality – if we will conduct census in reality.
Let us suppose that 1 Crore or 10 Million (10,000,000) Christians are presently living in Pakistan
From this 1 Crore let us assume that 80 Lakhs or 8 Million (8,000,000) will try their best to attend the Sunday Prayer in the month of December 2013
And let us again assume that from this 80 Lakhs only 50 Lakhs or 5 Million want to donate a donation of 1 Rupee per Sunday for the Census Process, which means collectively from 4 Sundays in December 2013 we will have an amount of 2 Crore or 20 Million Rupees (5 Million per Sunday, so 4 Sundays mean 4 x 5 Million = 20 Million)
From this collection of our community’s donations (20 Million Rupees) we will print out the questionnaire, we will buy second hand computers for data entry process and we will give salary to our team leaders and their team members and the people who were involved in this process as full or part time. And secondly for printing – buying computer – stationery etc we will only give tender to our Christian Community People who are doing these businesses in Pakistan, so that they can also have some benefit but we will ask them first to hire more Christian employee only from our unemployed youth. I am also ready to donate 20 Desktop PCs for the Data Entry Process whenever our Christian Leaders are ready to start the census process.
After the completion of all the above processes our Christian Community is ready to record their census information. And I am really telling you that if we can achieve to record our Census Data by this process, we will make a new history because such thing never happened in this entire world and we will be an example for the minorities and for all the nations of the world. Ok, let’s stop dreaming and start changing these dreams into reality, so now our questionnaire (as shown below) is printed and ready after 5 months of conscientious work and let us start distributing to the Congregation after the Prayers and our Team Leaders will guide the congregation by showing the form on the projector and the team members will help everyone if there will be difficulties because of the English Language or any other. After filling all the forms our team members will take and will compile them and put it in some safe place and will say thanks to the congregation and if possible we can arrange some tea party from the donation explained above. On the next day, our census team will come and will start checking the information recorded, if there will be any missing or form incomplete they will put a tick sign on that forms and put them on a different place and on next or 2nd Sunday again if there will be some new people they will give the new forms and the same process like on 1st Sunday and for the incomplete forms they will ask the specific person to complete the form or what is the problem, why the form is incomplete etc and they will rectify the problems in the incomplete forms. Similar process will go through 3rd and 4th Sunday of April 2014 and after that all forms will be compiled in an ascending order and our census team will put them in a good plastic bag with an adhesive label. On the label, our census team will write total number of forms, church name, address, date, team leaders name and mobile # etc
The compiled packets will go to the Data Entry Departments, these data entry departments we can establish in our renowned Cathedrals and Churches all over the Pakistan by the permission of their Pastors and Fathers (if and only if they will agree and they can give us some separate room for 3 months). Each Data Entry Department will have 5 – 8 Desktop PCs and the Data Entry Teams will work in 2 shifts morning and evening. The team will be the same team which helped and worked in the form filling process. The question arises why? Because these boys and girls which helped in filling the forms they can easily check and think the validity of the data when they will enter as compared to some new computer specialist who will just enter the data without thinking, reasoning and checking. And what we do not want or afford after all this long process is Error in the data, because a simple error can corrupt all the integrity of our census data. As the data entry process is started, we will start collecting the data from all the data entry departments to the data entry head office, where every day the collected data from all the data entry departments will be complied in a single file or program with a backup on 2 separate hard disk every day and so on and so forth we will finish the data entry process too. Then at the end of the day when we will have our Complete Census Data in a single worksheet or in a file or in a program then we will ask from all over the world, any of our Christian Brothers or Sisters who can help us in doing the data analysis, in which I will also try my best to help, and when we will have our Data Analyzed - we will publish our Census Data on the Internet and will give to the mass communication industry. That’s all folks! We Can Achieve The Unachievable.
Solution / Option No.2:
To understand option no.2, you need to read my article/project “Rebuilding Christian Community in Pakistan by Poverty Alleviation Model (PAM)” which is already posted on the Pakistan Christian Post’s website and will be published soon as a whole project on Pakistan Christian Post’s website. I have discussed the process Collections in detail in my PAM System in Part-II and Part-III, so if you have already read that article you can understand that through the process collections we can also record our census data. All the census processes will be the same as discussed in option no.1, just the form distribution and filling process will be changed. Our collections team will go door to door for collection of donation 1 Rupee every day, and so they will also give our questionnaire to every family and its members and after some days when they will fill the forms completely, our collections team will collect and give the form to our data entry team and as explained above after processing we will have our expected results.
Now let us design and discuss Questionnaire in detail in the next Part No. IV
 
Part–IV Questionnaire
What is a questionnaire?
It is a form containing a set of questions; submitted to people to gain statistical information
Let us name it PCC (Pakistani Christian Community) and start designing a questionnaire. From now on, we will call this questionnaire “PCC form”
PCC
CENSUS SURVEY
QUESTIONNAIRE
1. Name:
2. Age:
3. Gender: Male Female (put a mark)
4. Marital Status
1) Never Married
2) Married
3) Widow
4) Divorced
(For the persons less than 10 years enter code 4.1 - for data entry process only)
5. CNIC:
(For the persons less than 18 years leave it blank, for the rest if they do not have please specify)
6. Present Residential Address: (should be complete address “House #, Street Name, Area Name, and City Name)
1) Owner
2) Tenant
3) Any other… (Specify - for example a visitor, guest etc)
7. Education Level
1) Primary
2) Secondary
3) Higher Education (specify - for example in IT, Economics, Physics, Mathematics, English etc)
4) Illiterate
8. Employment Status
1) Unemployed
2) Employed
3) Housewife
4) Student
9. Types of Employment
1) Government/Civil Servant
2) Labor Class
3) Business
4) Any other… (Specify - for example a tutor)
10. Personal Income (Monthly Average)
1) Rs. 1,000-10,000
2) Rs. 10,000-20,000
3) Rs. 20,000-30,000
4) Rs. 30,000-50,000
5) Rs. above 50,000
6) Daily Wages… Rs.
(If the respondent’s answer is option 6 then check whether the income level falls within one of the above categories and mark both options)
11. How many people are there in your household?
1) 1-5 personals
2) 6-10 personals
3) 11-15 personals
4) Above 15
12. What type of job?
1) Government (specify - for example in Ministry of Education as Deputy Director etc)
2) Civil (specify - for example in Beacon House School as teacher)
13. What type of business?
1) Shopkeeper (specify - in which area and what is the name of the shop)
2) Any other… (Specify - in which area and what is the name of your business)
14. If you are studying in the area?
1) School (specify - in which class, in which area it is situated and what is the name of your school)
2) College (specify - in which area and what is the name of your college)
3) Higher Education (specify - in which area and what is the name of your university)
4) Any other… (Specify - in which area and what is the name of your Educational Centre)
15. By which mode do you usually travel?
1) Private Vehicle (specify - for example motorbike or car etc)
2) Public transport
3) Any other… (Specify - for example walking distance or cycle etc)
16. How often you visit the hospital?
1) Every week
2) Once in a month
3) Once in 6 months
4) Once in a year
5) Do not want
6) Never
7) Other reason…? (Specify - for example discrimination reasons)
17. What is the name of the hospital you visit?
18. The reason to visit hospital?
19. How often you attend the church?
1) Every Sunday
2) Once in a month
3) Once in 6 months
4) Once in a year
5) Do not want
6) Never
7) Other reason…? (Specify - for example security reasons)
20. What is the Name of your church?
21. From which sect do you belong?
1) Catholic
2) Protestant
3) Other… (Specify – Jehovah Witness, Mormons etc)
22. Do you have sanitation facilities at home?
23. Do you have a television?
24. Do you have a refrigerator?
25. Do you have a microwave?
26. Do you have a Desktop PC or Laptop?
27. Where your children were born? (For married women only)
1) Hospital
2) At home
3) Do not have any children
28. Name of the hospital where children were born? (For married women only)
29. Any children died, what was their age? (For married women only)
30. Recently, any of your family member died, what was the age and your relation?
So, this will be our PCC form (Pakistani Christian Community census survey questionnaire), and I ask my whole community please read all the questions, which you do not want to be asked, we can delete and if you want to add more questions, we can add. Because I have already mentioned in my Part-III that until and unless our Christian Leaders from every sector (Political, Spiritual and Organizational) will not sit together and start discussing my Questionnaire, it can never be finalize. So, I request my community and Leaders to unite and to merge – only then we can successfully accomplish our goals.
At the end of my topic – I am thankful again to Pakistan Christian Post of posting my articles and giving me such a good platform from where I can share my plans and writings which can and will help our Christian Community in Pakistan to excel and to flourish.