| Islamic Relief began its work in Patkin by forming a community organisation made up of members of the village who identified their main problems and also the solutions to overcome them.
As part of our support to community organisations in Pakistan, Islamic Relief provides them with a package of management and financial training. With this knowledge the community organisation in Patkin has set up a savings system, which has allowed them to give small loans to members to help with their businesses or farming.
Islamic Relief has helped to set up community organisations in all the communities we work with ensuring community participation and input thus making our projects sustainable and appropriate to each village. Without the community organisations it is unlikely that our projects would be accepted by the community and would thus have limited long-term benefits.
72-year-old Bibi Naaz is the manager of the female community organisation in the village of Killi Abdul Samad Totaazi, a remote village in Kharan, Balochistan. Bibi has partially lost her eye-sight and lives with 16 members of her extended family. “I have faced some extremely difficult situations in my life, most recently when we lost our animals and crops in the long drought. By losing these we have been through the most difficult times of our life,” Bibi said. “Not only that but there is very little water for drinking and washing and we used to fetch water from far away areas which was difficult and took a long-time.”
“We were scattered, there was no unity between the residents of Killi. Each of us was thinking in isolation and was not bothered about other people’s problems. With the formation of the community organisation we learnt we can find solutions to our problems and help each other. We also learnt about saving money for worse situations and for our community development.”
Through the formation of the community organisation the village identified the need for clean water and also income generating activities as major issues. “The old well was not covered and was polluted with dirt and sometimes deadly animals like snakes. That caused a number of diseases among people.” Islamic Relief has been working with the community, providing them with hand-pumps and also livestock with which to make milk, butter, yoghurt and wool to sell at market.
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