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Posts tagged with: relief
May 21, 2009    |       4 comments

Swat Relief Update [Day 1 @ 15:41]

Have just reached Peshawar, the initial plan was to rendezvous with my friend coming from Karachi but due to unavoidable medical reason got held back. I am now awaiting a call from Inam who was supposed to reach Bgheecha Deri by bus, I expect that too be delayed as his cell phone is powered off probably due to drained out battery. Ill wait up about an hour here in Peshawar and if I don’t hear from Inam by 4pm ill head out towards Mardan and Bagheecha Deri for the scout report.

Faris is in Lahore overseeing the Makro shipment – mashallah we had a few last minute contribution pushing the grand total closer to Rs 29,00,000 [Rs. 2.9 Million] the items will be added to the delivery at Makro Lahore. Once the trucks are loaded Faris will head by bus to Peshawar while we will plan to meetup with the truck the next day.
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May 20, 2009    |       8 comments

IDP Relief Update from Islamabad – 20th May

I am presently in Islamabad after having attended a very interactive brain storming session there were over ~30 NGO’s present. Even Ali Asghar of the Omar Asghar Foundation. In these round table meetings there is an abundant ‘talk talk talk’ but I was glad to note that these teams are doing a great job on the ground while the government is busily dragging its feet.

The National Disaster Alliance which was created during the Earthquake on 2005 seems to be sleeping and the hard work done to get that unit prepared seems to be gone in vain as these NGO’s were alarmed at the lackluster approach by the government in trying to manage this recent catastrophe

Due to my own inclination towards digital activism during times of crisis there was a remarkable eagerness displayed to adopt technology to implement them in the NGO’s and we hope initiate some project within a few days and hope to implement it across Pakistan

Relief Collection Drive, by the grace of Allah was an initiative that was started on the afternoon of the 15th has reached a total sum of roughly Rs. 27,00,000 [Rs. 2.7 Million] and it continues to grow even as I write this blog post, a testament that the people in Pakistan are genuinely the biggest donors despite the low GDP
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May 17, 2009    |       14 comments

Swat Relief Collection Drive update

I must thank all our donors that our campaign is going strong, local personal efforts have pulled in a close to Rs. 1,300,000 equivalent to purchasing 430 relief hampers for the refugees in Swat & Mardan. Of the funds collected so far we have allocated Rs. 400,000 for medical items, details of which are being feverishly worked out. We also await the final concession by Makro on the relief package news of which will come early Monday after a decision from the top management expecting the cost of the hampers to drop to 2,500 – we will still continue our campaign at Rs. 3,000 so that the surplus can be used to acquire more hampers or aid. helping us reach the goal of collecting relief for 1200 families [7200 people]

All financial details will be kept public at http://cli.gs/idpack even during the trip, the costs incurred will be supported with full receipts and shared online so as to ensure full transparency of this noble effort to help our countrymen

The overall plan is to collect funds and deposit them to Makro, who in turn have promised to ship the goods from their warehouse in Lahore under our own custody.

I am tentatively scheduled to leave on Wednesday to Islamabad to attend a high-level meeting of NGO’s brainstorming on IDP relief and hope to contribute with ideas etc, from Islamabad I hope to reach Peshawar & Mardan on Thursday while some of our team members will be going to Lahore directly to physically take custody of the relief goods from Makro. My early arrival in Mardan will allow me to strategize on the best way to disperse off the goods to the rightful people avoiding a free for all snatch fest which was seen in Earthquake 2005

We are feverishly working with international NGO’s like PakSef to have online donations available for our international supporters those funds will be transfered directly to Makro and delivery will be made to our team in Lahore.

The other most essential items required for the IDP’s are tents which are priced at 11,500 each, if someone is anxious to contribute towards that cause please update us I am sure we can pool resources to maybe acquire a container full of tents ready for delivery in Mardan.

Running updates are available on my twitter account http://twitter.com/DrAwab while financial details are publicly available at http://cli.gs/idpack

May 17, 2009    |       70 comments

NADRA charging Rs 50 for ID Card Verification from IDP’s in Swat

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQt7oIGONYM[/youtube]

Translated by Noman Qadir courtesy of the Video posted on PakistanIDP

nadra-charging-50 form IDP in Swat and MardanNADRA is charging Rs.50 for folks who lost/misplaced or had their cards destroyed in the process of fleeing their homes. The provincial government, district government, civil society and individual citizens are doing all they can to feed, house and clothe these IDPs.

The federal government charges them Rs.50 for their Identification Cards. Call your MNA, Senator, Uncle, or Auntie, call anybody and everybody you can, and tell them how outrageous this is. NADRA should stick to making money on contracts from foreign governments (as it does when it mass produces machine readable passports for other countries). This software house financed by the taxpayer should not be charging IDPs for a document that is a human and constitutional right in Pakistan.

It is indeed a sad situation that the government has the audacity to charge anything so as to merely get verified and be able to get relief aid to feed their families – this is criminal

May 15, 2009    |       21 comments

Collection Drive for IDP Relief team to Swat

UN estimates there are 980,000 people being displaced out of NWFP – there is tremendous suffering and a severe lack of funds and Volunteers.

IDP's scrambling for food in SWATFacebook Event – Collection / Donation appeal for IDP’s in SWAT
I plan to lead a team to the affected areas hopefully to depart from Karachi on the 18th of May 2009 to take the collected donation items personally into the region of Mardan and physically distribute the items only to the needy and suffering.

We are interested in anything that you can contribute. We are hoping to pre-pack the collected items into small handy packages so as to distribute items to each individual person. The small packages will help us avoid hoarders who made even the 2005 Earthquake a business.

Please Please do not donate old/expired stuff. Make sure edible items are hygienic and properly packed.
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May 13, 2009    |      1 comment

Monitor the Swat Crisis via Live Blog

swat-banner1It has been for some time that the online community has found a great utility of monitoring events as they unfolding. We utilize the CoverItLive application which allows timestamped live updates while at the same time the application monitors twitter of the latest updates appearing there. Presenting the entire event in one concise framework. Our Friends at Teabreak have launched this Swat Crisis Live Blog – Its time that we all pitched in to help relieve the suffering of thousands of Internally Displaced People of Swat and the surrounding region – Live blog after the jump
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