Scholarly NVM Experience

I was full of apprehension as I flew towards Pakistan. What awaited me? After all, I was coming out alone on the strength of email correspondence with Mr Muhammad Ali Saif of NVM and a short telephone conversation. All I knew was that I wanted to get involved in the rehabilitation work in the earthquake-affected areas and that NVM seemed to be the most reliable organization through which to work. However, on arrival in Islamabad, my apprehensions were lifted. I received a very warm welcome and was put instantly at ease. Now all I experienced was excitement at the number of possible projects that I could get involved in.

I was sent to the Hazara region and was based in Mansehra for roughly six weeks. NVM had links with many organizations in this area and I visited several that were carrying out activities in the earthquake-affected areas, before opting for two particular projects where I felt I could be of use. The first project was the Emergency Response Project of RWSSP, for whom I wrote an evaluative report on the work of the Health & Hygiene promotion team, which I joined on its visits to tented schools in the Mansehra region. The second project was an orphanage in Attar Shisha run by the Al Khobaib Foundation where I taught English to the 320 students and 6 teachers.

How can I sum up my experience in the earthquake areas? It was an emotional time of highs and lows. Before I arrived I had expected that the area would be a building site, with houses popping up daily. I had been told we are now in the rehabilitation and reconstruction phase. But what I saw was what could, in many ways, still be described as a relief phase. Whilst camps have been disbanded and people sent back to their local areas, their villages and towns consist of little more than camps themselves. Most of the population is still living in tents or temporary shelters. And to make it even more impossible for them to start rebuilding their lives, the floods have ravaged their homes, with many people having to return again towards Mansehra and move back into relief camps. The people are wondering when the disasters will stop, and I felt myself asking the same question. With the whole area a no construction zone, and NGOs constantly coming up against formalities with which they must comply before starting practical work (a process which has been taking months for them) efforts to move life a little closer to normality for the victims are hampered and progress is slow. And yet, whilst help is so desperately needed, attention is gradually moving away from the area. After all, it is nine months on, and people who have not visited the area probably assume, as I had, that rehabilitation is in full swing. The local people are starting to wonder where all the help has gone, with some organisations having left and others still present and yet facing constant hold ups in their work. I saw many signs to show that people were losing interest in the cause: a hospital which is fully equipped with the latest technology but has only one doctor as it cannot find another doctor who is willing to work for a lower salary than they would get from private practice; an orphanage which is having to rethink it’s future plans because it’s landlord has decided, only three months after making the agreement, that he is no longer willing to lease his land to them; a school who has only six unqualified teachers for it’s nine classes. What is desperately needed is manpower in the form of both unskilled, and particularly, skilled workers who are willing to take a pay cut or work on a voluntary basis to better the lives of these people for the sake of humanity.

And yet, on the highs side, at a time when I was finding it hard to cope with the devastating tales told to me by the victims of their loss, and witnessing the unimaginable destruction and the horrific effect it is still having on the lives of the people, I was also overwhelmed by the immense hospitality of the people and the fact that everyone went out of their way to make me feel welcome. The smiles and warmth that greeted me from the local people as they thanked me for coming to help made all the frustrations worthwhile and made me extra determined to do something to try to mobilise more people to get involved. So I hope that anyone reading this is asking themselves what they can offer to the wonderful people of this region, and is about to contact NVM to get involved. They can be assured it will be a worthwhile experience.