SOUTH ASIA RELIEF & DEVELOPMENT
During our recent field visit to our Pakistan Medical Life Center, we were able to identify several highly disadvantaged families that we could help in a long term way. Sadly, we can’t help everyone so we had to be selective on who we could help. Thanks to your giving, we were able to help families such as Shama's family. Shama suffers from polio and her husband is a shoemaker by trade, but due to a large medical debt for their daughter, they were forced to work almost as slaves at a brick kiln paying off their debt. Although the wife has this disability, she learned how to sew and she was adept at making the bricks.
Shama demonstrating how she makes bricks despite her polio condition
But the reality was that they earn only $3 per day to make 1,000 bricks which was barely enough to pay for their once a day bread and water in addition to their debt. It would take years to pay off their debt. So, we were able to pay off their debt and our field partner has a sewing center which will enable her to get work as a seamstress. The husband found a job at a factory. The long term goal is for them to become self-sufficient so that they will not end up back in the same situation. Sadly there are families trapped in this system who may never make it out and their children will have to keep paying off the debt. There are larger systemic problems to solve - the legal system, the lack of education for children in these areas, illiteracy of the families who don’t know what they are signing on for and so on.
Shama and family after their newfound freedom!
WCF was also able to help 3 families who were living under the most deplorable conditions where they had no roof over their heads and lived worse than the animals that they were tasked to care for by their landlords. In fact, they had to pay the owner for the animals' manure to use as cooking fuel. Some of the girls are attending sewing classes so that they could earn better income for their families. WCF was able to build proper housing and roofs.
This family lived in this open area - next to the cows they had to care for, which had better shelter than they did
Their new home!
This young lady had been hit in the head with a steel rod during a street fight in her neighborhood when she was young. She required surgery and was told she should not be exposed to the heat. Her family didn't have their own home so they lived in the fields with no shelter from the hot sun. She persevered and is at the top of her sewing class
WCF built her family a home with a roof
We visited another family with 5 young girls whose small home had lost its flimsy tin roof due to last year's monsoon. The father was a barber, but lost his shop due to COVID. We were able to build them a roof and supply rent and materials for him to open a new barber shop so that he can start providing for his family again.
Main living area whose tin roof was destroyed last year
WCF built a roof covering the main living space
WCF paid to reopen his barber shop
None of this would have been possible without your funding partnership.
MAJOR FLOODING IN PAKISTAN
This year's monsoon season has been unusually severe in Pakistan and now one third of the country is under water, 33 million people have been displaced from their homes with no food or shelter and 1,500 people have died across the country. There is now a high risk of water-borne diseases breaking out in the disaster areas. Many people are flooding medical facilities including our Life Center due to diarrhea and other related illnesses.
The community near our Medical Life Center has been severely affected by the flooding. Most of these fields have been flooded and the rice crops have been destroyed. They will have no food for the coming winter.
WCF would like to purchase and distribute new Food and Water Purification kits to distribute to as many families as we can help. Each kit costs $50.
In addition, there are other housing needs of others that we were not able to help due to lack of funds. Others have lost their homes or have severely damaged homes due to the massive flooding.
Please consider partnering with us to help families with humanitarian relief. For more information, please visit our Pakistan Relief Project page: