By Plan International | Thu., November 10, 9:03 AM | Comments ( 0 )
Some of Idrees children with flooded farmland in the background
Plan's Asian based media officer, Nopporn Wong-Anan travelled to Badin in Pakistan where Plan is helping people recover from the recent floods.
Farmer Mohammad Idrees Lund, 28, lost most of his 12-animal livestock when flood waters from rains and breached canals hit his home and farmland in Badin, an arid district in southern Pakistan’s Sindh province, in August and September.
Left with only two goats, a tiny plot of flooded land and a damaged hut, Idrees is still optimistic he will be able to lead his family to emerge from the third disaster in his life, stronger, as the precious lives of his children and his wife remain safe.
“This flood is the worst disaster in my life. I lost nearly everything – two buffaloes to milk and goats to sell to market. But thanks to God, I still have my family with me,” said the father of 6 whose mud house lost its hay-thatched roof in the floods this August and September, which have killed some 200 people and made 6.8 million people homeless or displaced across Pakistan.
“I believe my willingness to work hard will get me a job soon,” said the subsistence farmer who also survived the 2001 earthquake and the 1999 cyclone.
Idrees is among 16,000 families Plan and its partner HANDS have provided with health and hygiene kits in the district of Badin where 1.8 million people were hit by the floods.
He is also among the 80,000 people whom Plan and HANDS are providing some 200,000 litres of safe drinking water to daily, as the availability of safe drinking water has been a major challenge in Badin. Only 20 out of 78 water sources remain usable after the heavy rainfall.
Thanks to the relief supplies Idrees’ family received from Plan after the first flood waters hit Badin in mid-August, he was able to improvise jerry cans as lifebuoys for his sons and daughters to float along the 1-1.5 metres high water as the family was evacuating from their flooded home to the high grounds and then his relatives’ house about 10 km away in early September.
Idrees and 10 other families with small children live in tents made of tarpaulin given to them by Plan, beside an inaccessible road along his flooded land,. Next to him is his brother Mohammad Ali Lund, a 45-year-old taxi-driver and farm labourer who has 12 children and 14 grandchildren.
Due to the flood waters, Ali’s main occupational tool, his two-decade-old Suzuki taxi cab, lost its rear window and needs a major repair.
Although Ali’s six adult children have moved out to live elsewhere, Ali still has more than 10 mouths to feed. He has been living on a government cash transfer of 10,000 rupee (USD 114) and relief supplies from Plan and other NGOs. He realises that the food and cash will be depleted soon if he doesn’t look for work.
“I am happy to do any work, I’m looking for a job on a farm in the village or a labour job in town, to have some money to feed my children and rebuild our home,” Ali said.
The problem is that not many jobs will be available for Idrees and Ali as the new growing season has been delayed by the still-standing flood water and the saline soil caused by the breached drainage canals meant to drain salt water to the sea.
Plan Pakistan is hoping to help fill this gap with a “cash for work” project for the flood-hit survivors. Through this project, Plan will help families generate income to support their children while at the same time helping to repair and restore essential community services that were damaged by the floods.
The international response to the 2011 Pakistan flood has been insufficient to meet the needs of survivors. Plan has raised only about 35 per cent of what it needs, a similar fate of underfunding that many other INGOs are also facing.
“It all depends on how much funding we get for the relief and recovery stage,” said Shahnawaz Khan, who leads Plan Pakistan’s emergency flood response in Badin.
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