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Posts tagged with: Sindh
Jun 28, 2015    |      Comments Off on Revenge of the ballot – by Fahd Hussain

Revenge of the ballot – by Fahd Hussain

A must read article by Fahd Hussain, a few extracts

“Some people are just such incurable apologists for elected scoundrels.  It’s really not that complicated. For five long bloody years Karachi groaned under the collective sins of the PPP-MQM-ANP triage. People were killed like flies while criminals flourished like emirs of oily sheikhdoms. Fat cats grew fatter and multiplied like rodents, infesting the nooks and crannies of government and semi-government organisations. And the city went to hell. As did the province.

If the PPP-MQM-ANP triage had honestly wanted to clean up Karachi and Sindh, they could have. They had the mandate; they had the legitimacy; they had the powers and the resources; and they had the time. Yes, five long years of unchecked, undiluted and unadulterated power. But they did not because they were, and are, part of the problem.

So you apologists — wake up and smell the stench of this farce. This mess is not what we deserved; this is not what this country was made for. Hundreds of thousands died and millions were displaced for scoundrels, rascals and swindlers to rule this land into total mayhem? Yes, the military has contributed generously to this mayhem, and yes its leadership in the past has unleashed monsters that ravage this land of ours today; but what do you do now when Sindh is being ruled to ruin and there is no chance of reform under the PPP and the MQM?

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Nov 4, 2014    |      1 comment

25 Million children are Out of School in Pakistan — But, those ‘in’ school are equally Out of School

Recently Alif Ailaan published a report titled 25 Million Broken Promises: The Crisis of Pakistan’s Out-of-School Children exposing the pathetic situation of education in Pakistan – but if there are millions of children out of school in Pakistan – then Im embarassed to share that the children “in-school” are equally uneducated and can be eqaully categorized as “out-of-school” – This is a video of a school in the metropolitan school based in Karachi – if such is the standard of education in an urban center – pray what might be the state of education in a rural school reportedly educating the future of our children

May Allah have mercy on our rulers, Sindh has received billions in funds for the past year but the situation in education and all other sectors are still at the mercy of corruption by the same leaders who rule over them

Feb 26, 2013    |      Comments Off on Sindh quietly makes law to de-fang HEC

Sindh quietly makes law to de-fang HEC

HEC sent to the grave by SindhWith parliament and the ECP at loggerheads over the issue of fake degrees, the Sindh Assembly has passed a new law to make the federal Higher Education Commission totally irrelevant in relation to the Sindh province by setting up its own provincial HEC that has been given all the powers, including the authority to verify degrees awarded by any institution in the world – allows them to induct Fake Degree holders bypassing Central HEC The News: Sindh quietly makes law to de-fang HEC

Oct 27, 2010    |       7 comments

Before and After Pictures of Shikarpur Pediatric Ward

Just a follow up on the Shikarpur Pediatric Ward, Umair Jaffer prepared a short PDF file on the before and after pictures of the work done at the Shikarpur pediatric ward as a collaborative effort between OffroadPakistan and CDRS-Shine Humanity. The older three wards were revamped by OffroadPakistan and we also took the burden of setting up and stocking the free medical dispensary, CDRS team took the initiative of setting up two brand new wards nearby, seeing these pictures one does get a proud feeling, that with proper team work we can seriously make a difference

Oct 12, 2010    |       6 comments

Shikarpur Pediatric Ward revamped

A team of offroadpakistan headed to Shikarpur this last weekend to oversee the restoration of the Pediatric Ward at the Civil Hospital Shikarpur, Khalid Omar and Sabiha Omar represented us for the four days to supervise the total cleanup and painting of the three existing wards which included repair of the existing beds, the installation of insecutors in each of the wards and the cleaning up of the lavatories in the building, amongst a host of other things. They also oversaw the setup of the medical dispensary which is to provide free medicines for the patients for the next three to six months. Some of the older pictures can be seen here while our video appeal can be watched here

[nggallery id=90]

Oct 6, 2010    |       6 comments

URGENT- Forcible eviction of Flood Affected people in Karachi

A very urgent appeal was emailed by Zulfiqar Shah of Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research [PILER] to a number of mailing lists appealing for help in preventing the forcible eviction of over 10,000 flood affected IDP’s from their camp in Karachi… In my opinion there might seem to be an ulterior political motive to shove them out of Karachi – for the sake of Humanity this must stop – CAN YOU HELP – the message reads as follows,

This is an urgent appeal for your immediate intervention to save flood affected families from forcible eviction.

  1. About 10,000 flood affected people got settled at Labour Square camp in Gulshan- e- Maymar Karachi. This is a government recognized camp.
  2. Last week local revue official (Mukhtiarkar) made an announcement that people should evacuate camp within one week otherwise they will be forcibly evacuated by 5th October;
  3. This resulted in protest by affected people and smaller level scuffle between revenue officials, affected people etc;
  4. On last Sunday, Al- Khair Trust stopped supply of food and to our information many families are sleeping hungry. We can only bring 20 children to PILER centre for lunch today as they had not eaten for last two days. They aged 4 to 12 years;
  5. Food supply of the camp was initiated by Sylani Welfare Trust, run by liberal and moderate people but surprisingly this was replaced with Al Khair Trust, run by hard core religious people;
  6. Flood affected families with women, children were in fear, many of them without food for last two days but now worst has came in the shape of threat of eviction;
  7. By the time I write this mail ( 13: 50 PM / Tuesday 5th October), five to six police vehicles along with lady police have reached to camp and many of camp residents rushed to us crying that they are being forcibly evacuated. “My village Mirpur Buriro in District Jacobabad is still under water, please go and see; where we can go? Its cruelty to evict us” Says Muzafar, a young resident of camp.

It’s surprising that the government wants to evict these people. It’s equally surprising that this camp is not in a school that government want vacated to reopen school. This camp is in an empty building which was empty for last 3 years and there is no problem if it run additional 3 months.

Government had not given any indication of such an eviction initially. It has only came up with the idea a few days ago. It’s likely that these people will be forcibly evicted and this may result in another catastrophe for them.

Please intervene and do whatever you can do to stop this eviction.

Zulfiqar Shah, PILER
021 3 6351145-7

Sep 29, 2010    |      Comments Off on PK Relief Mission #8 – Video Montage

PK Relief Mission #8 – Video Montage

Faisal Kapadia compiles a short video of our Medical Camp at Moro – Mission #8. I too am surprised at the impressive impact we have had on the flood relief

PK RELIEF STATS:

  • 8 relief missions,
  • 47,500 people given with 5-days of food,
  • 25,000 people fed with ready to eat food,
  • 480 families provided with tents,
  • 1500 families given clothes hampers &
  • 1000 people treated in our one day medical camp

Sep 28, 2010    |       7 comments

Relief Mission #8 – Medical & Flood Relief to Moro & Dadu

The Offroadpakistan team this week embarked on a medical relief mission to Moro and Dadu. The plans for a Medical camp had been taking place since the start of the flood effort, but our initial focus was on providing food and shelter as in the first phase of the disaster that was the basic need of the victims, by the last trip few trips it had become clear that the initial impact of the flood is now beyond us, water had started to stagnate and recede and it was now imperative to refocus our strategy and aim on providing medical relief in the same areas.

Our plan was to concentrate on organizing a medical camp, but felt the need to also cater to food and clothes so effort was made to prepare 1000 food hampers, 1100 clothes hampers [which contained one shalwar kameez for men, one three-piece suit for women, one pair of clothes for boys and one more pair of clothes for girls, two soap suds for clothes washing, two for personal hygiene soaps, a womens hygiene kit, a small hand fan and a few other items all packed by a brilliant team of women], we had also arranged for 120 cartons of medicines acquired for roughly for the cost of Rs. 3 lac, compared to the budget set out for our medical camp, we were able collect massive quantity of medicines as our pharmaceutical help cam from Ehsan Awan of Nawan Labs who personally saw the acquiring of generic low cost drugs for the same aliments, truly helping us target a larger number of people within the same allocated budget. Our guestimate was to have enough drugs to cater to at least 500 patients during the medical camp.
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Sep 22, 2010    |      1 comment

Eid Day at Flood Relief Camp at Northern By-pass Karachi

Many years ago, maybe even in my childhood, when I spent much of my time crossing through the hole in the wall of Jinnah hospital where we lived, into the Bijatta line juggis to Farzand ki dukan, I stopped thinking of people as rich and poor, but as nice people or not, gentle or rough, honest or crooks, interesting or boring. I have come across some of the most generous and refined people in the poorest of localities, and boorish, crude and miserly attitudes in homes that have more than plenty. So I was not a bit surprised when I found such gentleness, patience, strength of character, humour, hospitality amongst the traumatised residents of the Northern Bypass Flood Relief Camp on Eid day.

The floods have not only traumatized those who were in its path, but in another equally intense way all those who have watched the horror unfold on their television screens. Some courageous people went straight into action mode, supplementing the efforts of the Army rescuing people, setting up camps, and getting relief goods and medical help to them. The rest of us felt inadequate in the face of the enormity of the tragedy. But as in all natural or man-made disasters, there is eventually room for all levels of support and assistance.
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Sep 22, 2010    |      Comments Off on Laidback Show Episode 24 – C-130 Flood Relief to Jacobabad

Laidback Show Episode 24 – C-130 Flood Relief to Jacobabad

The OffroadPakistan team boarded a Pakistan Air Force C-130 aircraft this last week to deliver over 1200 food hampers to the flood affected victims of Jacobabad. Jacobabad has been cut off from relief work due to the inaccesbility of teh Jacobabad-Shikarpur road and the only possible way to access this area is to be airlifted to the PAF in Jacobabad.

The offroadPakistan has previoulsy tried to reach jacobabad by road but was unable to do so, and when offered an opportunity to board one of the daily C-130’s to this stranded area, we seized the opportunity. Delivered relief to over 1200 families along the Behari Canal which has barely not received any aid for quite many days.

Sep 14, 2010    |       11 comments

PkRelief raises $142,000 and Feeds over 61,800 flood affected people

Ever since the start of our first flood relief mission to Sukkur on 14th August 2010 the sheer number of lives that we may have impacted is truly unimaginable

PkRelief has to its credit the following statistics

  • Provided 36,800 people with food hampers, each hamper contained basic food for a family of 5 for a week
  • Provided 25,000 people with immediate ready to eat one-time meals
  • Provided 280 tents in various locations, Sukkur, Shikarpur and Thatta which will provide shelter to 280 families or 2800 people
  • Provided 500 families with clothes
  • Provided 6 trucks of water bottles approximately 1000 cases of 1.5 ltr bottles

It gives me immense satisfaction that ever since the Floods 2010 have hit Pakistan there has been an immense out pouring of love by Pakistanis and the citizens of the world to help rehabilitate the poeple of Pakistan affected by the floods in Pakistan. On 8th August we initiated launch from our blogs and partnered with SARelief.com for tapping the online donors this was augmented by a strong local offline effort amongst our family & friends to have Mashallah have raised over US$ 142,000 [last tally on 13th Sept 2010].

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Sep 6, 2010    |       5 comments

Video of the conditions of a Pediatric ward in Shikarpur

A worldwide appeal by Dr. Awab Alvi for upgrading the pediatric ward in Shikarpur. He takes you through a walk-thru tour of the Pediatric ward at the Civil Hospital Shikarpur to show the deplorable the conditions that have been aggravated due to a large influx of flood related victims into the area. The ward looks after only the severe cases, upon our visit there were three natal wards a total of 20 beds and it held a capacity of over 100 children [PICS] stacked within it has been fortunate that some generous donor had installed airconditioners so as to make this barely livable, if you were to walk out of the rooms, the stench in the heat and the stench in the hallway is unimaginable, toilets down the hall are over flooding beyond belief.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJXR2F2Mj40[/youtube]
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Aug 26, 2010    |       2 comments

Report: Flood Relief Mission #2 to Shikarpur

On return after our first relief effort to Sukkur two weeks back we had several meetings amongst the core group of volunteers adopting a long term medical relief and rehabilitation strategy, however during the subsequent week we continued to receive urgent demands for help emanating from many of the inundated villages of Sukkur and Shikarpur

Thus in response to these pleas we embarked yet again on the 21st of August with a convoy of 8 trucks laden with relief goods of which seven were carrying relief hampers while one carried the load of a hundred tents accompanied by their donor. The convoy consisted of 7 cars and we made our way to Sukkur at around 5 pm passing through Hyderabad and Kotri which was slowly becoming inundated with flood water as the water levels had considerably increased since our first relief mission a week earlier.

Our staging area & warehouse was arranged by Taimur Mirza through the local MNA Agha Taimur located on the main Shikarpur – Sukkur link road. We immediately offloaded our seven trucks of relief goods into this warehouse and with the help of the U.N coordination center in Sukkur dispatched the 100 tents to a PAF-managed IDP relief campsite on the Sukkur Bypass road
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