Snakes and Schools

The turboprop touched down very smoothly at 9:00pm on Tuesday, the crew welcomed us to Sukkur and announced it was 32C and as the rear door opened the hot air consumed the canned cool air – if I’d known that was the last cool air I would inhale for a while I would have breathed more deeply.

One of the most volatile issues in Pakistan at the moment that is causing protests and riots is the power load shedding. With inadequate power for the ever increasing demand, it has been ‘normal’ during summer, for the power grid to be shut down for an average of 2-3 hours per day. But this year some places are being shut down for between 10-15 hours – Sukkur is one of them. It’s okay for those that can afford generators and the fuel to run them, but for the majority of people – on a 40C+ day – it is becoming intolerable, and they are letting the government know about it – so the government has set up a committee to discuss it!

I have spent the past two days travelling around Sukkur looking at single and two room schools that are part of the Education program: My Teacher, My Role Model. Designed to make learning a “joyous experience” the program seeks to up skill teachers, eradicate corporal punishment, advocate for the implementation of education policy and in some cases (where necessary) refurbish schools to make them places where both students and teachers want to be.

One of the main issues for these rural schools, particularly for girls, is the lack of washroom facilities, in the past parents have kept their children home. But in these two days I have heard stories of parents and teachers who, having learned of the policies, are going to education officials and insisting on the facilities that are mandated by policy to be provided, and government officials are responding. It’s a longer story, and a little more complicated: but the result, after only 5 months, is that in most of the schools where these initiatives have been implemented student attendance has increased on average 20% and teachers are enthusiastic.

Arriving at the Central Primary school this morning I was greeted by the Assistant District Officer (Education) and two snake charmers. This school, like the rest I visited, is (mostly) a happy place despite the fact that due to power load shedding most schools are without any electricity: in a concrete classroom, on a 40C+ day – it is hot, stinking hot! But the achievements are clearly evident, here like everywhere else, kids want to learn, and parents want them to. Little girls speak of their hope to be doctors, teachers and judges; little boys announce that they will be soldiers, presidents and policemen.

Driving around Sukkur makes me wonder if I have landed in some bizarre movie. It’s like being in a giant sandpit with mud and brick, grey/brown buildings. Camel and donkey carts vie for right of way with ornately (gaudily) decorated and dangerously overloaded trucks and motorbikes, on roads where dodgem seems appropriate to describe the rules. In contrast to the sand and beige an overload of colours worn by women splashes around the peripherals.

Just outside the city acres of land are lined with date palms loaded with fruit, but then with the blink of the eye they’re gone and the landscape is replaced by sand dunes topped by an ancient fort, an ornate mosque, or a quarry.

“This is real Pakistan” says my host, “the real people live here, they are poor, they are forgotten and they are hungry – not just for food, but for education, because they know the only way to change Pakistan is to educate their children.”

Saving Face

Every year in Pakistan, many people – the majority of them women – are known to be victimized by brutal acid attacks, while numerous other cases go unreported. With little or no access to reconstructive surgery, survivors are physically and emotionally scarred. Many reported assailants, often a husband or someone else known by the victim, receive minimal if any punishment from the state.

Recently honored with a Best Documentary Short Oscar®, SAVING FACE chronicles the lives of acid-attack survivors Zakia and Rukhsana as they attempt to bring their assailants to justice and move on with their lives. The women are supported by NGOs, sympathetic policymakers, and skilled doctors, such as the Acid Survivors Foundation- Pakistan, plastic surgeon Dr. Mohammad Jawad, who returns to his home country to assist them, attorney Ms. Sarkar Abbass who fights Zakia’s case, and female politician Marvi Memon who advocates for new legislation.
 
Directed by Oscar® winning and Emmy®-nominated American filmmaker Daniel Junge and Oscar® and Emmy®-winning Pakistani director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, SAVING FACE is an intimate look inside Pakistani society, illuminating each woman’s personal journey while showing how reformers are tackling this horrific problem.

I Feel Proud and Happy

Iqra Bibi, 23, lives in a small house in the village of Bandi Maira, in the mountains below the town of Nathiagali, a relatively prosperous and beautiful tourist region. In contrast to Nathiagali, Bandi Maira, lacks many of the comforts of life such as health care, roads and access to income opportunities; Iqra, and other women, usually stay at home and often face discrimination in these patriarchal communities.

Like other poor families living in Bandi Maira, Iqra is responsible for taking care of her seven younger siblings, and her father, a retired civil servant, who earns Rs. 7,000 (AUD $70.00) a month from his government pension. Living with such a little amount every month makes it really hard for Iqra to meet their basic needs.

“I always wanted to do something for my old father and my family living in poverty,” said Iqra. But despite the desire, Iqra could not get permission from her father or brothers to work; a girl earning for the family would bring shame on them, they preferred poverty to shame.

But Iqra didn’t lose hope. She started doing some voluntary beautician work in the village, offering to do make up for the village girls for different ceremonies, like wedding parties. But due to pressure from her family, she was not allowed to take payment – she continued her work free of charge. This work gave her at least one benefit: she became connected with the village girls and women.

Iqra had another advantage though too, she had twelve years of formal education. And despite the discrimination she was confident and refused to give in. “I often thought of ways to utilize my own abilities to do some job and earn money to live a respectable life in my village,” Iqra said.

In October 2011, she received an offer to join a new project [Women Entrepreneurship Development] for the women and girls of the village who want to undergo some training and start earning. However, when Iqra asked, her family stood against her wishes; but Iqra went to work on her family and eventually convinced them that there is no shame if a girl works.

With her father’s and brother’s permission, she started attending candle making classes in the village. “Being a girl it was very difficult to work here in my village where acceptance level is very low that a women can also work and support her family but my thinking was different,” said Iqra.

“I decided to learn candle making and wished to start my own business. Although at village level, it looked quite difficult to me how I will start a good business from a training only, however after going through business cycle training I was able to understand how I can improve my skills, start production and sell my products”, said Iqra.

With help, Iqra started visiting Abbottabad city markets and negotiating with shop keepers, presenting her beautiful candles in the first two months after completing her training and receiving startup material, Iqra earned almost Rs. 15,000 (AUD $150.00). With this good start, Iqra has now contacted her cousin in Rawalpindi city and plans to visit and meet some market owners and establish business linkages and get orders for decorated candles. Expanding her business would be a great hope for Iqra to become a successful entrepreneur. Now, with the confidence of her family and her relatives, Iqra is really motivated.

“The most important thing is that I am now living a respectable life. My little brothers and my father do not tease me and I am happy that I can support my family, which was otherwise very difficult for my old father,” said Iqra. “I am confident that my future is bright. I earn as my father and my brothers earn and it is not only helping our family financially but also giving my family a sense that girls can also work,” she further added.

Iqra has also started training eight other local girls from her village. “When all girls of my village give me respect and call me their Teacher, I feel very proud and happy. First I was kind of an unknown person in my village, but not now, as villagers now started realizing that this is a respectable work which a girl can do in the village,” she said.

(Abridged from a report by Nadia Qasim)

A Day in the Life of a Brick Kiln

In Pakistan bricks are made in a manner that was invented 200 years ago (Bull's Trench Kiln). Soil is scraped from good quality agricultural land, water and straw are mixed in, children and men work from first to last light forming it into wooden moulds and turning it out to dry in the hot sun. The dried brick is baked in environmentally unfriendly, smoke belching kilns.

Over 17,000 of these kilns are registered with the appropriate government departments, but there are many more that are unregistered, avoiding the restrictions, the payments, and any hope of (non-existent) regulation. Some of the kilns are "Owner Operated",others are and on leased land. The majority are owned by rich privates and some by government officials. Each kiln can last about 4-5 years before they have stripped the resources of the area, and are no longer viable.

A typical kiln will have about 60 workers, 20-25 families living and working on the property. The owner/operator will provide a very basic house, made from bricks, which is home for between 100-150 people (including children and elderly dependants). The vast majority of these workers are 'bonded' labour - they and their whole family is in debt to the owner/operator and will work until the debt is paid. But most of these people, illiterate and marginalised, have any idea what their current level of debt is.

Each kiln can produce between 200,000 and 600,000 bricks per month, and they pay PKR 507.00 (AUD 5.00) per 1,000 bricks produced, and one kiln owner just outside Islamabad is selling 1,000 bricks for "just PKR 7,500.00" (AUD 75). The average wage paid to a worker is PKR 305.00 (AUD 3.00) per week - but then the manager will deduct PKR 20.00 for each 'imperfect' brick and PKR 20.00 for loan repayment.

Children, from the earliest ages, join their parents in the brick manufacturing business: as youngsters they will gather soil and make and provide mud; some as they get older will become "fire men", keeping the fire burning; and others will load, unload and carry bricks. All this under the watchful eye of the guards who both keep people in and out!

People know that the use of children in the production of bricks (and any industry) is illegal. But how do you convince people not to buy bricks produced by child labour (there is no other option at this time, that any one knows of) - they're cheap, PKR 4-7. If we could produce an Ethical Brick in a Child labour free kiln - the cost would most likely be more. How do you convince people that it matters? How do you get people to say no to child labour? How do you change the circumstances for parents who have no choice but accept that for the family to survive their child must work?

That's what today was about! It will involve advocacy - researching the current context, educating people as to the reality - and then convincing buyers to say no to kilns that use bonded and child labour. It is going to involve lobbying Churches, Mosques, Diplomatic Embassies, Government, NGOs, large National Agents and getting them to commit to an "Ethical Production Policy".

So why not help? Do you know someone in Pakistan? Ask them about their child labour policy. Ask them to start making a noise about this issue. Write to your government's embassy in Pakistan - ask them if they are buying resources from producers who use child labour. Ask the shop owners if the leather jacket you want is from Pakistan - chances are if it is the leather was prepared by a child.

If you wouldn't want your 6 year old working in horrific conditions then do something! Even if it's just educating yourself.

I Think I am 9

8:00am this morning, as I headed out to Rawalpindi, the sun was already beating down from a clear blue sky, the temperature was just topping 33C on its way to a top of 41C for the day.

Some of the children I was going to meet at Drop-In Centre (DIC) 2, had already been at work for three hours when I set out. By the time we arrived at the Centre at 9:00am they had finished work for the morning, washed up and arrived at the DIC. The kids will spend 2 hours in the DIC and then some will go back to work.

The DIC is a two storey building in the back narrow, grey concrete streets of Rawalpindi just around the corner from the main produce market, (where many of the children work with their parents). The walls are decorated with the children's artwork: a 2 times table made out of scrap paper cups, the Urdu alphabet outlined by beans - "we are a 'green' school" says one of the teachers, "we use scrap from the streets and market for the children to learn".

Despite the heat outside it is not too bad with the fans going inside. The children are remarkably clean for street working kids, their skin clear. The DIC health officer and teachers hammer home the importance of washing their hands and faces - it seems to be having an effect. But despite the message of treating water for drinking most children tell us that it doesn't happen at home - 'because mum and dad can't afford the wood or gas to boil water'.

I had the chance to spend some time with four remarkable children: three boys: two 11 year olds and one disarmingly cute and front toothless who told me he was "somewhere between 5 and 7", and his sister who told me, "I am smaller than him, but older; I think I am 9". (Over 50% of children in Pakistan are stunted, source FAO.)

Some of the things we found out, the questions that were asked, and answers given include:

1. The two 11 year olds help their family by picking rags. They start work early, while its cool, finish to come to the DIC, and will go back later in the evening.
2. Mother-melter and Toothless helps his dad in the vegie market by bagging produce.
3. Mother-melter with huge eyes sells Mum/Home made snacks from a small table on the street near home, (her little sister joins her)
4. What do you like about the DIC? "The teachers and staff are nice, friendly - and we love learning."
5. These children are all from large families: between 7-9 siblings. They wish that they're brothers and sisters could learn to read and write too.
6. If you could do anything you wanted to when you are older, what would you do? I'll be a Doctor. I want to be a teacher. I want to drive a car. I want to be a Policeman.
7. If you could have anything you wanted today, what would you ask for? "For my Mum and Dad to have work, so that I don't have to pick rags and I can go to school." "For my Dad's stall to be closer to home, because the Market is too hot".

The hope of this DIC is that over the next 3 years about 600 children will pass through the centre where they will receive a basic education before being accepted into mainstream, full time schooling. Their parents will receive some training to improve their income and learn about child rights. The community will work together to protect their children and decrease the need for their children to work.

These children grow up quickly, there is not a lot of time or energy for fun and games - but every now and then harsh reality can be pushed aside and kids are kids. Here in the DIC they laugh, they sing, they dance, they draw - and they poke faces at strange people.

Oghi Humanitarian Award

On March 10, 2010 seven team members were murdered in the Oghi office, in the KPK province. This single event has informed the practice of the organisation in a number of ways, not just here in Pakistan, but internationally.

Following the 'Oghi Incident' the provincial team and all the programs were relocated: the office to Abbottabad (you might recognise that as the city where Osama bin Laden was found a year later) and the programmes to the Nathiagali area. Some of the Oghi team came with us and still work to change the lives of their people.

On Wednesday night many of the Pakistan team met together at a Hotel in Islamabad. In the banquet hall decorated in the fashion of a wedding reception with hanging flower arrangements, fairy lights, chairs clothed in pink and a live band, we are here to recognise and celebrate colleagues that have worked for 5 years, each receiving a pin, a certificate and the applause of their friends. Added to the event this year was the "Oghi Humanitarian Award" - an award struck to recognise the sacrificial service of 5 members of the team, and to celebrate and remember the sacrifice of the seven that died in service.

Following the award part of the evening, the serious business began: Pakistani karaoke and the dancing began. Mainly men, but a couple of brave women, entertained the team singing local favourites and on one occasions a previously banned anthem - and then at around 10:00pm the food arrived.

It was a good night and a chance for the leadership to honour the daily sacrifices that their team make to work in some tough contexts.

My Girl Goes to School

 Faraz (not real name) is a father of four young children, three boys and a girl - in the last few years each of his children have worked on the streets around the Rawalpindi bus station in an effort to get enough money to feed the family. They have each had their turn at collecting rags, plastics or other recyclables which they can sell for small money, collecting used oil that can be sold to mechanics or selling snacks from carts. As each of them have reached and passed school age they have stayed working because the family needs them to do so.

But then one day, through friends in the area he heard about the "Manzil School", a place where school aged children receive health care, life skills and an education that allows them entry to mainstream government schooling. It's a place where parents are taught about Child Rights and Parenting, and where mothers can receive vocational training in sewing, craft and income generation. (By equipping mums to make money the family can afford to send and keep their child/ren in school.)

Recently Faraz spoke of the difference this Drop-In Centre has made for him and his family: "My children are now all at school, even  the girl. They are happy. My wife is making some money from sewing for friends, enough to keep children in school. And I am no longer hitting my children - I have learnt how to punish them, I have learnt how better to manage them."

There are now two Manzil (First Steps) centres in Rawalpindi, with about about 160 children registered in their program. Today as I arrived about 30 young children were singing and acting together, laughing and smiling; while some of their mothers learned how to sew clothes, and the older girls learned how to design and sew designer collars onto their outfits.

Over the next three years Manzil Rawalpindi will seek to decrease the number of working children in the community by 3,500. The majority of these enrolled and attending school; the older girls and boys taught vocational skills to enable them to work and earn; the parents and community made aware of the rights of children and educated in good parenting skills.

PAKISTAN PINEDABAD

Arriving in Islamabad at 2:00 in the morning has some advantages: the roads are quieter, the air a little cooler and the check points quicker to navigate. After the usual 'challenges' of long distance travel I arrived in quite good condition. One lesson to take away: grace and generosity, selfishness and impatience are not bound by culture or status - they belong to humanity in all its beauty!

My second visit to the work in Pakistan promises to hold some of its own challenges. This time, in a just over three weeks, I will be taking a look at a few different projects that come under my oversight.

• A couple of children's drop in centres where street/working kids receive health care and basic life lessons, they  learn how to thrive.
• Education programs designed to help existing schools improve their facilities so that children and teachers are safe - so that kids want to go to school.
• Trafficking/Child labour projects, where we will be investigating the potential of an ethical brick trade

But the big work will be facilitating a workshop on the design of two integrated multi-funded, multi-sectored program models that will seek to address child well-being in a rural and an urban context. This is going to involve some research, some creative dreaming, some pragmatic ordering and a lot of coffee. We'll be building logframes and problem trees, mapping power and influence, analysing partner relationships and at the end of it - working out how best we can use Australian government funding to transform the lives of children - not so that they survive but so that they thrive.

One of the projects is called Pakistan Pinedabad. Pinedabad is an Urdu concept, it captures the idea of "more than survival" - it dares to imagine that people have the right to more than rights. It is the dream that children have the right to life in all its fullness - life with laughter, with learning, with love - LIFE!

So, it's a big ask, but my goal in the next three weeks, is to help the team here in Pakistan dream big - and then shape that dream into a reality that together we can hope for and deliver. Pakistan (children), More than Survival!

Insha'Allah.

RESIGNING MY COMMISSION

A middle aged man stares back down the passage of his life. On each side of the brightly lit corridor colourful doorways lead to intriguingly unique rooms; there are not many pastel colours, there are a few shadows and a couple of the inevitable draughty spots and in one or two places the floorboards protest as weight is applied – but there is an irresistible sense of brightness, excitement, fulfilment and completeness.

This week he gently, tentatively closes a very familiar door, this one a trinity of bright splashes: red, yellow and blue. The door will not be sealed shut and it will not become a museum, but for now he cannot hide in what has become a comfort zone. But, this is just another room in the passage - albeit the biggest and the most comfortable, it is the room that has defined and empowered him for almost 25 years. Other doors are marked by the memories and experiences that have sometimes guided, sometimes pushed him to the threshold where now he stands.

One of the first and most significant doors, marked by a stylised lion on a field of red, orange and green, leads to the place where he learnt what it means to be “other”. His parents, through their faithfulness, their passion for God and love for others taught him what it means to have God on his side, to be available – and perhaps most importantly to be willing to lay down his life for others. His parents showed him what it means to be a Salvation Army officer, and the people of Sri Lanka showed him what true faithfulness looks like – trust in the face of profound uncertainty and even disaster.

A few doors further up there is the door marked by the yellow star on a red and blue background, with the words “I know the plans I have for you” emblazoned across the lintel it seems to have been there even before some of the earlier doors were hung, it’s as if it was always going to be. This Salvation Army Officer room has shaped the man for the majority of his life, and off it numerous anterooms contain experiences and memories that have defined and empowered his ministry. Here he learnt that he was ‘called by God to proclaim the gospel, to love and serve God, to live to win souls and make their salvation the first purpose of my life, to care for the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, love the unlovable, and befriend those who have no friends’. And in this room, he was equipped, through studies and experience, to be a humanitarian and development expert. His ministry became defined by his engagement with the hopeless, the poor, the hungry, the naked, the unlovable and the friendless.

The biggest of the anterooms, marked by a burst of the brightest colours, has been the most influential. Here, the memories of marriage and fatherhood fail to be contained by the door; they spill out into every part of the house, like oose these experiences seep under doors, they break through the windows of other rooms – these are simultaneously the informants that have made the man what he is, and the fuel that has carried him on. His wife taught him about acceptance and love, she taught him that he is good enough, but that he also has the potential to be more – she encouraged him to be the person God created him to be. His daughter gave him a reason to care what the future looks like, and she helped him stay real, connected and passionate.

It is because of these and other doors that the man stands at the threshold of a bright orange door. As he reluctantly closes the “Officer” door he does so with confidence that this is what God requires of him. Foremost in his thoughts is Jesus’ story of the Talents (Matthew 25:13-31) and the reminder that God requires people to use their gifts and experiences, to not do so is to be disobedient, to be a lousy steward - “To those whom much is given, much is required” (1 Corinthians 4:2).

So, the new door has opened and I am getting used to a new colour, sometimes it all seems overwhelming and I just want to retreat to what I know – but then God reminds me that God is pleased because I will remain faithful to my calling, ‘to proclaim the gospel, to love and serve God, to live to win souls and make their salvation the first purpose of my life, to care for the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, love the unlovable, and befriend those who have no friends’ – for now I will fulfil that calling by means of a new orange vehicle.