An update on the UK Trustees Visit to Pakistan

Helen Bingley OBE DL
Chief Executive

This was a very sobering trip to some very poor, resilient and resourceful people in the flood affected areas of Swat valley in Pakistan. These people had very little before the floods and most of them have now lost everything. Despite their loss these people welcomed us with open arms and hosted us with great care taking care of our every need.

Introduction
The aim of our trip was to visit the projects and meet the communities that AF are supporting in areas affected by the recent floods in Swat and visit potential new projects.

AF Swat we began by meeting, acknowledging and appreciating the very impressive group of volunteers, including females, in Mingora that supported us to achieve what we have done in Swat valley. This group of volunteers have now joined Abaseen Foundation and will continue to support our work in this area.

Visits to flood affected projects
We visited the following communities that were provided with:

• emergency food and water and essential supplies,

• one month’s supply of food and water,

• female hygiene kits,

Bangladesh the community are very pleased with the support that they received from us.

This community haven’t lost their houses and now require support to rehabilitate their properties that have been damaged. We agreed that this is outside the scope of the AF support. We did agree that AF should support the widows in this community with food and supplies for 6 months, we had the opportunity to meet these widows and their families and they are very deserving of our support.  

Bahrain 
We have supported several small communities in Bahrain.

The wider community have suffered total devastation of their properties, loss of land and livelihoods. These people now require long term extensive support to rehabilitate their community. We agreed that this is outside the scope of AF. We did agree that AF will remain open to considering specific smaller new projects and we agreed to support a very vulnerable blind man and his family in Bahrain.

Utror 
This community are very pleased with the support that they received from us. These people are very poor farmers who grow crops.

As well as emergency relief we supported this community to take the harvested crops that survived the floods to market by transporting them in the 4 wheel drive vehicles that delivered the emergency aid.

We now have the data about the community and are under discussion about whether we can support them with seeds and equipment to enable them to plant a new crop for next year. There are so many poor farmers in all the areas that we are working with and we will support as many as we can based on funds available.

Mankar 
This community are very pleased with the support that they received from us.

We visited the community via the newly installed cable car provided by AF. It was immediately obvious to us from the feedback from the community that the cable car has had a very high positive impact on the lives of this community e.g. it was taking the teacher 2.5 hours to get to school to teach and 2.5 hours to get back, it now takes 38 seconds!

On our second visit to attend the medical camp that we organised in partnership with Rehman Medical Institute (the doctors saw 800 people from Mankar and surrounding villages, providing free medicine, the funds for this were raised by the students of the Institute) we were made acutely aware of the need for the cable car. A major storm developed including extreme rain, hail, wind, thunder, lightning and a swelling river below the cable car. We did think we were stuck!! Alas these brave people got us out of there – across the cable car – yikes! We tested the safety of the car first hand in the worst conditions imaginable.

We met with the community, their first priority is to build a flood prevention wall to protect the community from further damage from future floods. It was agreed that this is outside the scope of AF, we agreed that we will support and advocate for them in discussions with the government to provide this.

We did agree to provide:

• Safety rails for the cable car

• Vocational centre for women for 6 months after which the community will take over the project

Mankial 
We were asked to consider supporting a cable car for this community further up the valley from Mankar. The project is not viable as a cable car as there is insufficient land on the side of the road. We have requested a costing for a suspension bridge from the engineer, this may develop into a new project.

Gabral 
Many people in this community have lost everything, their buildings and land have been completely washed away. They are very pleased with the emergency relief support that they received from us. The community told us that we are the first and only people to visit the area and provide them with support, they are delighted that we came.

We visited the new hydroelectric project which will be formally opened by Abaseen Foundation Pakistan in a few days. This will provide the community with free electricity which is important for many reasons including preventing the need for them to cut down the trees. This in turn contributes to the climate change agenda by avoiding the impact of future floods. There was much talk with this community about the climate change agenda, despite most of the people being illiterate they are well informed and fully understand the issues. 

We visited the health centre which has been devastated and we are exploring what we might be able to do to support the redevelopment of the health centre. The most urgent need is to restore the water supply. The nearest hospital is 99 kilometres away, major sections of the roads have been washed away and it took us more than 9 hours in 4 wheel drive jeeps to make this journey, these people don't have any vehicles.

This community size is about 14,000 people and there is no girls school, the community asked us if we would be able to provide a girls school. We agreed with the AF Swat volunteer team that we will do a survey of the community to find out more information and once we have more information we will make a decision. This project cant proceed until at least March 2023 as many of this community migrate to a warmer part of Swat for the winter as the community is cut off by snow.

Mingora 
AF Swat volunteers asked us to support them to develop specific education projects in Swat to develop the most needy people to provide them with knowledge and skills to lead them into an alternative life away from poverty. We met some ‘street workers’ who fall into this category.  We agreed to support AF Swat volunteer team to set up an Apprenticeship Scheme in Mingora. The group will select 10 trades to start this project which will open up jobs for the apprentices and also contribute to developing economic growth in the area.

Charsadda 
Here, we distributed seed, school bags and female hygiene packs to a community of very poor farmers in Charasadda. This will enable them to grow a harvest next year. We agreed with AF PK to provide similar to more framers according to the funds available.

We have now raised almost £130,000 for the flood projects. This is a long term project and there are so many people in need, we will continue to work in the flood areas whilst funds continue to arrive.

Thank you for your much needed support,
Helen Bingley OBE DL
Chief Executive